My SLP Story
Hello and welcome! Thank you for checking out my blog, Homegrown Speech Mama. I am so excited to start this endeavor, and look forward to sharing content about speech and language development, how our kids learn to eat from birth, as well as my journey as a mom. Who am I? I’m a speech-language pathologist (SLP) who lives in Raleigh, NC. I’m also a mom, cat mom, believer, singer, and baker, specifically of my legendary chocolate chip cookies. I started Homegrown Speech and am the owner of my private practice based in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Every once in a while, someone asks me how I got into this field. For those of you who don’t know, I have a singing background. I have always loved singing. Just ask my mom, and she will tell you that as a child, I would lay on the kitchen floor and try to mimic the voices of Whitney Houston, The Carpenters, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, and Disney Princesses: Ariel, Pocahontas, and Jasmine. I was heavily involved with musical theatre in high school, was part of an award-winning barbershop quartet, and very passionate about choir and vocal performance in college. I went through voice lessons and coaching sessions for years, and focused on classical opera at UNCW. I loved learning how to sing in German, Italian, and Spanish. I worked hard to get the emphasis and accents technically correct in every performance. I tried French as well, but hey, we can’t all be good at everything. I’ve always been fascinated that our voices come from our bodies, and that we are capable of producing such beautiful sounds.
I’ve also been interested in accents and dialects since I was a kid. My family is from Long Island, though we have lived in North Carolina since right before my second birthday. Growing up in the south, but being raised by New Yorkers was always interesting in terms of dialect at home and out around town. My brother once cried because he thought his first grade teacher was calling him “Carl” instead of “Kyle”, but it was just her sweet, southern accent. Sometimes I misunderstand my husband when he says things like ‘pen’ as “pin”, and I always love hearing my grandma say that she will check her calendar, or “calendah” to see when she can have me over next.
When I learned that there was a profession that included specialty in voice as well as articulation, I knew it was my calling. Being a speech-language pathologist combines healthcare and education; the two fields I always felt I wanted to go into, but hadn’t yet figured out how to combine.
In graduate school at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, I worked hard and learned immensely through classes and internships. Being at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary Voice Lab was a dream, and we worked with various patients including singers to rehabilitate their voices after vocal injuries. We used different forms of technology to analyze what was going on with patient’s voices and how their vocal cords were working. Work involving a piano and singing? Sign me up! I later worked in a private practice where we targeted feeding therapy with adults and children, which was challenging and exciting. Seeing kids get empowered and brave about eating and growing was fulfilling, and I wanted more.
Now, I focus on Early Intervention, and I work with primarily ages 0-5. Early Intervention is defined by ages 0-3, though I see some of my clients until they start school. The purpose of Early Intervention is to address goals as soon as delays are identified to lessen the impact of delays and help children to progress with some assistance as soon as possible. I see my clients in their homes or preschool environments, and focus highly on parent coaching and education as well as direct therapy with my clients.
Check out the rest of the website to learn more about what I do. Follow @homegrownspeech on Instagram for strategies, information, and humor related to speech and language development, and feeding therapy.