Meet Amy Graham | Speech language pathologist and Owner of Graham Speech Therapy

We had the good fortune of connecting with Amy Graham and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Amy, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
As a speech language pathologist who worked in the schools for many years, I finally decided to specialize in a niche area of the field…. speech sound disorders. Treating children who have difficulty producing sounds and who are difficult to understand when they speak is a passion of mine. So, after almost 20 years as an SLP, I finally took my husband’s advice and opened a small in-my-home private practice. I absolutely love working on my own terms and at. my own pace. It has allowed me to work as much or as little as I want.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My role as a sole practitioner began to organically evolve from just treating children with articulation needs into product development and professional development creation in a very unexpected way. When I opened my practice, I started a social media account on Instagram (@grahamspeechtherapy) to hopefully reach local families and share about my therapy services by posting short clips of my day to day therapy sessions. To my surprise, other SLPs found these clips helpful and my following skyrocketed. I started connecting with other SLPs around the world and met Jennie Bjorem, the owner of Bjorem Speech Publications. She saw the novel way I was treating children with lateral lisps and encouraged me to create a speech therapy product that SLPs can use to treat this tricky sound error. That’s how my first resource was born. From there, I began developing more assessment and therapy tools that were specific to my niche specialty to sell on my website (grahamspeechtherapy.com), as well as other platforms the SLPs frequently use (Bjorem Speech Publications, Teachers Pay Teachers, and Boom Learning).

With the increased exposure I had on social media, I began receiving requests from online professional development companies to create and present courses for other speech therapists. Although I was always extremely apprehensive about public speaking, I was determined to say “yes” to things that seemed challenging. So, beginning in late 2019 I began accepting those PD opportunities when they presented themselves. Now, 5 years later, I have presented my courses at over 150 in-person and virtual events, state and national conventions, and have begun traveling to present internationally. I am now so busy that my speaking calendar is usually booked a year out. So, I began creating my own webinars and recorded courses to reach more SLPs than I can travel to. This has allowed to pick and choose my travel opportunities and even take my family to amazing places, like Hawaii next spring and Australia next summer.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Colorado is the most beautiful place to visit… I would take her straight to my backyard, which opens up to a wildlife preserve to sit around the fire pit and just enjoy the view of the front range. I love taking friends up to the mountains for a hike in Palmer Lake or Seven Bridges trail near the Broadmoor…. and while we’re at the Broadmoor we can’t miss their Sunday brunch and beautiful grounds.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I have to shout out Jennie Bjorem for seeing the product developer in me, when I didn’t know I could do such a thing.

Laura Smith is an SLP and apraxia specialist here in Colorado (slpmommyofapraxia.com)… she’s the first person who asked me to co-present at our state conference in 2019. She had faith in my ability to present a course and gave me the bug for professional development creation.

And a BIG than you to all my IG followers who continue to share my content!

Website: https://www.grahamspeechtherapy.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grahamspeechtherapy/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/grahamspeechtherapy/