Welcome to Trestle
After 10 years of serving our Chicagoland community as Grady Cooney Speech Partners, Ltd, I’ve listened to our clients and decided this was the right moment to take the step forward and introduce our multidisciplinary group of the best therapists around.
The past 15 years have been a very exciting journey. In 2007, I started my private practice as a solo practitioner with the sole goal of finding answers to solve my patients’ problems. I felt like my hands were tied in school and hospital settings due to set protocols and bureaucracy. I wanted answers and solutions, and traditional education was not working for me or my patients.
I started studying the teachings of Pam Marshalla, Sara Rosenfeld-Johnson, Diane Bahr, Lori Overland, Melanie Potock, Marsha Dunn Klein, Cheri Fraker, and Laura Walbert. These were true innovative leaders in speech-language, oral-motor, and feeding therapy. Early in my career, they paved the way for me, as they saw the same differences in my patients as I did. They taught me to recognize that what is typical is not necessarily normal. They made it okay for me to question the norm. They gave permission through evidence-based clinical research over and over again that oral-motor has a place, a BIG place, in therapy. They fought back against the universities and status quo and they WON! And because of their braveness, I was able to provide the changes to help so many families.
2009 was a pivotal time in my professional life. The field of orofacial myology (OM) was introduced to me by my aunt Kathryn Grady, who is a dentist in Westmont. She was asking me how I, as a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP), could help her patients when their teeth move just weeks after braces are removed. I had no idea what she was talking about, so that night I began researching it and discovered a whole new world that blew my mind.
As a daughter, granddaughter, sister, and niece of dentists—and with a mother and several aunts who were dental hygienists—the field is intriguing to me. I could not stop learning how the development of the mouth and teeth could impact the function of speech and feeding. It now seems so basic. The anatomy, physiology, muscular innervation, and motor patterns of the mouth, tongue, teeth, jaw, lips, cheeks, and airways influence our ability to breathe, sleep, talk, and eat. I often get mad about how this was always discounted in undergraduate and graduate school. However, OM has been the missing key to unlocking the answers to the hardest cases I’ve ever worked on.
In 2012, the overwhelming need to help families was greater than I could single-handedly provide, so I opened Grady Cooney Speech Partners, Ltd. After five years of home health and moving from satellite office to satellite office, from Frankfort to Oak Lawn and downtown Chicago, we were able to open our clinic in Oak Lawn in 2015. What began with myself and my small team living out of “clown cars” with our trunks filled with toys and materials has grown into a family with a warm home from which to provide all our services. While scary and a leap of faith at the time, it has been the best decision I’ve ever made. GCSP has been blessed with the most amazing patients and families, and a staff like no other. It has been such an honor to make lifelong bonds with our patients. Most months I receive a text or phone call from a discharged patient or family professing the successes they and their children continue to make. Our goal is to support lifelong change and contribute to an optimal quality of life, and we are proud to have helped hundreds, if not thousands, of families thrive.
Our therapists are some of the most professional, intelligent, beautiful, and caring women I’ve ever worked with. Someone recently asked, “What’s the culture like at Grady Cooney?” With a smile on my face, I was happy to tell them, “We are a family without any of the baggage. Our therapists work extremely hard, mentor each other, take initiative without being asked, problem-solve daily from little questions to the most challenging cases. They are professional, but loving, and treat this clinic like their home. All doors are open and all are welcomed. We also pride ourselves on offering the most innovative services. We support team trainings and advanced education, and we cherish collaboration.”
Along these past few years, I’ve had many families reach out to me requesting we look into expanding our services to include physical therapy (PT) and occupational therapy (OT). We’ve slowly added both fields, with amazing therapists to add to our family, and have had exceptional results and wonderful feedback. Giving families one home to serve all their needs has been a blessing. We are now able to collaborate across speech, OT, and PT, providing even more support to our patients. Due to this success, we feel it’s the right time to move forward and introduce our new and improved company, Trestle Therapy Group, LLC. Trestle is a multidisciplinary group with the same dedication and results-oriented focus as GCSP, but takes us to the next level in collaborative care.
Trestle, you say—where did that come from? After over a year of brainstorming, I thought it was the perfect name to reflect our mission. Trestles provide the architectural support, strength, and safety for bridges, roofs, and many other structures in our society. It’s even more fitting that Trestle’s first venture is based in one of the greatest architectural cities in the world, the city of Chicago. At Trestle, it’s our mission to provide our patients with the essential foundation to support their structural, muscular, and neurodevelopmental needs to grow and thrive in all areas of life. We want to be the support to get you through your therapy journey. Thank you for trusting us and letting us lead the way to resolve your challenges and improve your quality of life so you can thrive.
