Today we’d like to introduce you to Kelsey Sullivan.
Hi Kelsey, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
There are a few moments or events in my life that have helped guide me down the path to where I am today. As a child, I always knew I enjoyed helping others. Helping my grandma when she was going through medical issues was always rewarding and something I looked forward to being part of whenever I was able, even if my job was just keeping her company. My mother was a physical therapist. In grade school I would go with her to the nursing facility and volunteer in the activity department to help paint the patient’s nails, go on outings to restaurants, and help with activities in the facility. This opportunity was the first time I’d been around the field of therapy and I got to know many of my mom’s therapy colleagues. I was always interested in what the speech therapists were doing. As I got into high school I had recurrent respiratory tract infections seasonally and would lose my voice. My senior year I lost my voice for an entire month during volleyball season and had to go to my own speech therapist to relearn how to properly use my voice. At that point, I was hooked! A speech therapist’s work felt so powerful and practical. I went to college and received my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Speech-Language Pathology. I worked my first 11 years in many different settings including early intervention, school-based therapy, assisted living facilities, skilled nursing facilities, and home health. In early 2025 my 4 year old son needed help with his speech sound production but I realized I was missing the tools I needed to assist him. I took him to a friend’s speech therapy practice and she told me he needed myofascial release (MFR) and bodywork to allow his oral motor structures to move appropriately for speech sound development. This was new to me! After two sessions with an MFR therapist his speech sounds began to emerge. Then, my husband suffered a severe traumatic brain injury in June 2025 and suffered facial paralysis. I took him back to see the same therapist for MFR and he began to regain function sooner than anticipated in his affected side. Again, I was hooked! In September 2025 I started taking courses in John F. Barnes Myofascial Release, opened my own practice in my grandma’s old house in my hometown (a career goal of mine), and began offering myofascial release to the public. Up to this point my career has led to so many fulfilling opportunities in my professional and personal life and it feels like the fun part is just getting started!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The biggest obstacle I have encountered is trying figure out the best way to provide patients with optimal care while staying within the parameters dictated by the setting in which I was providing services. There always seemed to be time constraints, insurance challenges, restrictions on the type of services that could be provided in a given setting, or an inability to provide the frequency of services due to scheduling limitations. Private practice has always felt like a way I would be able to tailor treatment exactly to a patient’s needs. This has been the case so far!
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Progress to Success Speech Therapy, PLLC?
Progress to Success Speech Therapy was named to reflect the sole purpose of my practice – progressing patients toward their image of success in the realm of speech therapy. I offer traditional speech therapy for pediatric through geriatric ages including speech sound disorder remediation, expressive and receptive language delays, swallowing difficulty, voice disorders, cognitive deficits related to neurological diseases (this includes deficits in memory, reasoning, executive function, spatial awareness, orientation, time and number management, and much more).
Some of the services I offer that I am most proud of lie in my special certifications and trainings including:
John F. Barnes myofascial release is a manual therapy designed to improve structural mobility in head, neck, and oral motor structures by decreasing tension in connective tissue (fascia) to improve voice, swallow, speech function, and many other functional deficits.
Lee Silverman Voice treatment is an evidenced based treatment program to improve vocal loudness and speech clarity in patients with Parkinson’s disease, stroke, and many other acquired voice disorders.
Vital Stim is a non-invasive therapy using neuromuscular electrical stimulation to the face and anterior neck to reeducate swallowing muscles and treat dysphagia.
I am currently working to get my myofunctional certification to optimize my ability to progress patients toward success!
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
Transitioning to my own private practice has been the biggest risk I have taken in my professional career. The uncertainty of establishing my own caseload, maintaining my own space, and meeting all of the standards – that at times feel overwhelming – had been a huge barrier for me for years. Once I could visualize how the benefits in my personal and professional life would outweigh the potential downside, I took the leap and things have taken off from there.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ksullivanspeech.wixsite.com/speechtherapy
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61580144686156
- Other: https://www.google.com/search?q=progress+to+success+speech+therapy+smithton+il
