In a converted therapy room in Dawsonville, a haircut can take twenty minutes, involve a countdown, a favorite cartoon, and sometimes stop partway through — and that is still counted as a win. Kevin Simmons, a certified speech-language pathologist who specializes in serving children and young adults with sensory needs, has spent years giving free haircuts designed not around efficiency but around comfort.
Simmons works out of Prosper Therapy Services, located in Dawsonville, Georgia, and his approach blends his clinical training with a barber's touch, according to CBS Atlanta. He shows clients the tools before he uses them, breaks the process into countdowns and pauses, and leans on music and clients' favorite cartoons to help them stay regulated through what can otherwise be an overwhelming experience. The station reports he has cut one client, Liam, hair for years, building trust visit by visit.
Why a Simple Trim Can Feel Like Too Much
The instinct to help began years earlier, when a mother told Simmons that ordinary barbershop visits were leaving her child traumatized by the noise and unexpected touch involved, according to WSB-TV. Sensory-friendly haircuts are built to address exactly those two triggers: the loud buzz of clippers and the physical sensation of hair falling on skin, per the same station's report. Simmons adapts his approach to each child, sometimes reaching for scissors, a comb and water instead of clippers when a client is frightened of the blades, and he treats even a haircut that goes uncompleted as progress if a child simply meets someone new or gets comfortable enough to look at the clippers, the station notes.
Professionally, Simmons goes by “The Singing SLP,” weaving original songs and custom lyrics into both therapy sessions and haircut appointments to sharpen sustained attention and help children regulate sensory input, according to Prosper Therapy Services. The clinic itself grew out of a 2020 venture called Enabled Living, founded by four Brenau University occupational therapy graduates, before it expanded into outpatient pediatric care and rebranded in 2022, the practice's own history shows. Its Dawsonville facility now includes fully equipped sensory gyms and specialized treatment rooms built for exactly this kind of gradual, trust-based work.
House Calls Across the South
Simmons doesn't limit his work to the clinic. He makes house calls, too, offering haircuts in clients' own homes across Georgia and the broader South, per CBS Atlanta's reporting — a setup that lets kids stay in a familiar environment rather than adjusting to a new one on top of the haircut itself. Sponsors can help cover the cost of supplies and travel for these sensory-friendly sessions, the station notes, underscoring that the service remains free for families even as it expands its geographic reach.
Simmons treats the haircuts less like a chore and more like an art-making experience, aiming above all to help clients feel safe enough to want to come back, according to the same CBS Atlanta report. That approach earned him a spotlight last October, when Wahl Grooming named him the winner of its national Benevolent Beards Contest and its 2025 Wahl Man of the Year, an honor detailed by PR Newswire. The recognition came with $5,000 for Simmons personally and $20,000 for ConnectAbility, a Dahlonega-based nonprofit that supports families of children with special needs across North Georgia.
A Nonprofit Partner With Deep Local Roots
ConnectAbility, Inc. traces back to a student initiative launched at the University of North Georgia in 2001 before it was formally incorporated in 2010 to provide free respite nights, community events and support programs for individuals with disabilities throughout the region, according to ConnectAbility, Inc. The $20,000 award tied directly to Simmons' volunteer haircut work gives the organization a fresh infusion tied to a cause its own mission already serves.
Simmons' clinical credibility extends beyond the barber's chair. In March, he published guidance in The ASHA Leader, the publication of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, laying out strategies for pediatric speech-language pathologists to teach flexible thinking and manage perseveration — the tendency for a child to fixate on specific words or actions during communication — through structured play. Reaching that point required meeting Georgia's licensing bar, which the Georgia Secretary of State says requires a master's degree, 400 supervised clinical hours, a nine-month paid professional experience, and 20 continuing education hours every two years, all overseen by the state's Board of Examiners of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology.
A Growing Need in a Growing County
The demand for this kind of adapted care is rising alongside autism prevalence nationally. CDC data released in April 2025 found that 1 in 31 U.S. 8-year-olds, or 3.2 percent, were identified with autism spectrum disorder in 2022, up from 1 in 36 in the previous tracking cycle, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That trend lands in a corner of North Georgia that is itself growing fast: Dawsonville's population reached an estimated 5,169 residents in 2026, while Dawson County has grown more than 64 percent since 2010 to nearly 36,800 residents, according to World Population Review.
Access to therapy in that expanding county has its own recent chapter. Prosper Therapy Services announced this month that it resumed accepting CareSource Medicaid insurance, a change that followed advocacy from local therapists and families working to restore pediatric therapy access in North Georgia, the clinic said in a Facebook post. For families already navigating sensory challenges, that kind of coverage can determine whether specialized care, haircuts included, stays within reach.
