In a small town in Northern California, Kayla Cromer grew up exploring how the world worked. Her family encouraged her curiosity every step of the way: her father brought home old appliances from Goodwill for her to take apart, her mother looked for art contests and creative activities, and time with her grandparents fostered a love for rescue animals and the outdoors.

School was much harder. Reading, writing and mathematics took more time. Timed tests were stressful. She often missed jokes and understood metaphors literally. When someone asked why her head was "in the clouds," she reached up to look for them.

Her parents began testing and tutoring while she was still in pre-K. At seven, Kayla was diagnosed with ADHD, dyslexia and dyscalculia. Her autism diagnosis came later. She has said that learning she was autistic brought relief. It gave a name to experiences she had never understood.

The family searched for an education that suited the way she learned. They found Chartwell School, which works with students who have language-based learning differences. Kayla's mother left her job and drove more than 100 miles each day so her daughter could attend. Years later, Kayla said her parents had mortgaged their home more than once to pay for school, tutors and other support.

Movies gave her another place to focus. She watched Pirates of the Caribbean again and again and acted out scenes at home. Seeing actors such as Keira Knightley speak about dyslexia helped her imagine a career in film.

She began modelling, then studied acting. One teacher told her to stop trying to appear like someone else and bring more of herself into her work.

In 2017, Kayla packed her car and moved alone to Los Angeles. She lived in a crowded house with more than thirty young artists, worked as a waitress and attended acting classes. At that time, she did not speak publicly about being autistic. She worried that casting teams would see the diagnosis before they saw her range as an actress.

That changed when she found a casting notice for Everything's Gonna Be Okay. The producers were searching for an autistic actress to play Matilda, an autistic teenager. Kayla recognised parts of herself in the character and earned the role.

The writers invited her to share memories from her own life. One became a scene about tight jeans. As a schoolgirl, Kayla wanted to wear the same clothes as other students, although the fabric caused strong sensory discomfort. She poured baby powder into the jeans to make them easier to wear. When she sat down in class, a white cloud rose around her. Details like this gave Matilda a life that came from real experience.

Before the series aired, Kayla spoke publicly about her autism for the first time. She later said she had masked for too long. Telling her acting class, colleagues and then the public felt like taking off a weighted jacket.

Her casting made Kayla the first openly autistic actor to play an autistic lead character in an American television series. The role opened a wider professional path. She later voiced Twyla, an autistic character in Nickelodeon's Monster High, and joined the final season of The Good Doctor as medical student Charlotte "Charlie" Lukaitis.

Kayla continues to act and work in voice performance. She also writes and develops her own stories. The interests that filled her childhood, including film, mechanics, true crime and the paranormal, still appear in the work she hopes to create.

"I didn't see characters like me on TV growing up," Kayla has said.

Kayla was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy by My Entertainment World for her performance as Matilda. Everything’s Gonna Be Okay also received nominations from the GLAAD Media Awards and the Hollywood Critics Association TV Awards.

In 2024, she published and illustrated her first children’s book, The Adventures of Shirley the Witch, about an autistic and dyslexic witch who finds homes for rescued cats.