We were lucky to catch up with Grace Bernales recently and have shared our conversation below.

Grace, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We love heartwarming stories – do you have a heartwarming story from your career to share?

Yes there is one heartwarming moment that really stands out in my mind. It occured when I was a new speech-language pathologist (SLP) during a speech evaluation, that I was administering for a 2 year old child. The child’s mother was concerned about her child’s expressive language skills, since she produced a limited amount of words. Throughout the evaluation, her daughter actually imitated various words, which mother has never heard her say! After the evaluation was complete, her mother cried tears of joy, gave me a hug, and seemed to be more hopeful in her child’s communication skills! This is one of many reasons why I love doing what I do.

Grace, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Sure! I’m a pediatric SLP and founder of a small private practice called Graceful Expression, that started in 2019. Random fact, my best friend Catherine actually came up with this clever name!

I first got into the speech pathology field through my first job as a behavioral therapist, working with autistic children. All of my clients received speech therapy, so I learned about their speech and language goals through my supervisor. I later decided to observe a few speech sessions and also became a volunteer for a local speech clinic. This made me realize that becoming a SLP is what I wanted as a career. As a child, I knew I would be in a career where I helped children, so when I heard about this field I knew It was meant to be! I’ve truly enjoyed seeing all of my clients’ growth in their speech and language development, whether it’s producing their first words/phrases/sentences, producing sounds correctly, improving their oral motor skills, being able to have a conversation, signing/gesturing for the first time, following directions, answering questions, etc.

Additionally, I’ve also been an orofacial myofunctional therapist (OMT) for the past 2.5 years. I believe this is what sets me apart from other SLPs, because it does require extra training/knowledge that we are not taught in graduate school (at least not yet). As a OMT, I’m assessing an individual’s tongue mobility, breathing, chewing/swallowing, tongue posture, and looking for any possible tethered oral tissues (tongue, lip, buccal ties). I feel like this has helped me provide higher quality of therapy for my clients and it has really made me view them in a different light! It’s such a rewarding feeling to see my OMT clients (both children and adults) overjoyed with the progress they’ve made and the new skills they’ve acquired.

With that said, I’m beyond proud of the practice I’ve built since Graceful Expression began in 2019! At that time, I decided to leave my full time job to pursue my dream of having my own business. I’m appreciative of all the support I received from my husband, Josh during this time when I didn’t have any clients. He was understanding in what I needed to do, even if it meant completely quitting my job and starting from scratch. It was of course challenging at first to grow my clientele, but now I I’m thankful to have a consistent caseload. When I first started (and I know I shouldn’t have done this), I often compared myself to other private practice owners and wondered why it was taking me awhile to grow my practice. I thought to myself, “Wow they just started and are already seeing a bunch of clients, some are even hiring already.” I had to constantly remind myself that we’re all growing our practice at different paces. Now, 5 years later, I’m grateful for each of my amazing clients and their families, as well as the wonderful providers I get to collaborate with.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

As I child I knew I wanted to have a career where I helped people, especially children. When I started college I was initially a biology major thinking maybe I’d be a doctor like my father. Of course after taking difficult courses like chemistry and physics (also not being able to look at blood without getting disgusted), I became discouraged. Plus it didn’t help that I got kicked out of my major since my grades were terrible. I decided to pivot to psychology , as this was something that always piqued my interest! I graduated from college with a degree in B.A. Psychology thinking I’d go to graduate school to study to be a clinical psychologist. I had a classmate who told me about a behavioral therapist job position, which I ended up getting! I did this for a few years at two different agencies, in which I learned about the field of speech pathology. Without being a behavioral therapist, I probably would’ve never learned about what SLPs do. This was a turning point in my life, since it has led me to my SLP career, which I absolutely love and am truly passionate about!

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

I would say what’s really helped me grow my clientele is through the amazing providers I collaborate with and have connected with in the community! I connected with local providers by meeting with them in person to talk about my practice plus theirs, and discussed how we can work together as a team. These providers are composed of dentists, orthodontists, ENTs, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, etc. who often refer their patients/clients to me. Not only have they helped me grow my clientele, but I’ve learned so much from them as well!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.graceful-expression.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gracefulexpression.slp/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gracebernales.slp/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-bernales2019

Image Credits

All photos taken by Josh Tan