Today we’d like to introduce you to Melonie Melton.
Hi Melonie, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Our journey started as colleagues in an outpatient clinic of a regional pediatric hospital serving children from birth to age 18. After several years, we transitioned to serving a public school regional day program designed for students from age 5 to 21 with educational labels of autism, emotional or intellectual disabilities. In the last few years we heard from area public school districts that they could not find speech-language pathologists to fill vacancies. We also heard from families who were placed on waiting lists for up to a year before they could access speech services outside of the public schools. In 2023 we decided to begin the process of opening our own private practice to reach children and families who could not access the help that they needed.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has been a huge learning curve for us in terms of navigating the challenges of starting a new business. Our biggest struggle, by far, has been managing the requirements of becoming approved providers for various insurance carriers.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
We provide speech-language therapy for children and adults in the Tidewater area. We specialize in autism, augmentative/alternative communication and literacy. It can be challenging to find clinicians with expertise in these 3 areas of treatment. We take pride in using a neurodiversity-affirming approach that involves the family or caregivers in the treatment process. We have presented seminars at the local, state and national level in an attempt to share our experience and expertise with others in the field of speech-language pathology. We regularly attend trainings to stay current in research and strategies so that we can continue to provide evidence-based practices for our clients.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Success is helping a client be successful in expressing themselves in a way that others can understand. It is helping families support their child or family member with communication needs in a way that is functional. Success is feeling at the end of the day that you have helped improve the quality of someone’s life.
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