Meet the Heart Behind Bite-Sized Beginnings

Stephanie is a pediatric speech-language pathologist serving children and families in Naperville and the surrounding suburbs. She earned her degree from Eastern Illinois University and graduated in 2014. She completed her clinical fellowship through Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital’s Department of Rehabilitation Services and EBS Healthcare, working in a low-income middle school setting. Early in her career, Stephanie gained experience across a wide range of clinical environments, including hospitals, schools, and multidisciplinary private practices.

While Stephanie has held leadership and supervisory roles in private practice clinics, her heart has always remained in direct client care. She consistently found herself spending additional time with families—listening closely, collaborating on goals, and helping caregivers better understand their child’s communication profile and strengths. This family-centered approach ultimately led her to create a pediatric speech therapy practice in Naperville that prioritizes connection, individualized care, and meaningful progress.

Stephanie’s clinical approach is also shaped by her own lived experience. During graduate school, she was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Rather than viewing this as a limitation, Stephanie found the diagnosis empowering. It deepened her understanding of how brains learn differently and strengthened her ability to support children who process, communicate, or regulate in unique ways. Her authenticity and neurodiversity-affirming perspective help children feel seen, respected, and comfortable in therapy.

Families often describe Stephanie as warm, knowledgeable, and easy to connect with. She blends evidence-based pediatric speech therapy practices with play-based, child-led strategies to support speech, language, feeding, and communication development in ways that feel natural and functional for everyday life.

In addition to her clinical work in Naperville, Stephanie is a dedicated advocate for the field of speech-language pathology and the families it serves. She is an adjunct professor at Saint Xavier University, where she supervises graduate students during their clinical practicum. She is also actively involved in the Illinois Speech-Language-Hearing Association, serving on the Legal Action Committee and the Reimbursement and Billing Committee, working to improve access, policies, and reimbursement for speech therapy services across Illinois.

At the core of Stephanie’s work is a simple belief: every child deserves to be understood, and every family deserves care that feels collaborative, compassionate, and empowering.

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