Pediatric speech & language
Where little voices find their wings
Play-based therapy in a clinic that feels like home. Children find sounds, words, and the confidence to use them — and families leave knowing how to keep growing between visits.
- ASHA-certified care
- Birth through 18
- Play is the method
- Parents stay in the room
Why a nest
Children grow when they feel held.
A nest is not fancy. It is sturdy, close, and made of whatever the family already has. That is this clinic: skilled therapy wrapped in warmth, so little voices can take risks.
You will not wait in a hallway. You will learn the songs, the cues, and the play. Progress is spoken in plain language — not a binder of jargon you have to decode at midnight.
Our storyHow we help
Therapy that follows the child
- Birth – 3
Early language
Late talking, first words, and the leap into phrases — built through play your child already loves.
Learn more - 2 – 12
Speech sounds
When family understands, but the world doesn’t. Clearer speech, without drills that feel like homework.
Learn more - 3 – 18
Language & understanding
Following directions, building sentences, and finding the words that are ‘on the tip of the tongue.’
Learn more - 2 – 18
Fluency & stuttering
Room to speak without being hurried, coached, or ‘fixed’ in front of other people.
Learn more - 4 – 18
Social communication
Friendship, flexible conversation, and the unwritten rules of the playground — taught with kindness.
Learn more - Birth – 10
Feeding & oral motor
Picky eating that has crossed into stress — or chewing, sipping, and sensory patterns that need a skilled look.
Learn more
Close to home
A nest that fits the rest of the week.
Therapy should live near the playground, the pickup line, and the dinner table — not at the far end of a long drive.
Easy to land
A ground-floor room, street parking, and a drop-off that does not involve a garage maze.
After the bell
Hours that make sense after pickup — and quieter mornings when the week is already full.
Room for siblings
They can share the playroom, or the park down the block for the last five minutes.
Close to home
A walking neighborhood of stoops, playgrounds, and more than one language at dinner.
Find a starting place
What would help your child right now?
Two taps. We’ll point you toward the services that usually fit — then a parent consult makes it personal.
Choose an age and a concern to see a suggested path.
A visit
A day at the nest
- 1
You arrive
Shoes off, voices on
The playroom is already set with something your child will want to touch. No waiting-room clipboard marathon.
- 2
The session
Play with a purpose
It looks like a game. Underneath, we are targeting one or two goals with enough repetition to matter and enough joy to stick.
- 3
The last five minutes
You get the map
Two home cues. Not a packet. Something you can actually do in the grocery line this week.
Sound garden
Tap a sound. See how it grows.
A playful peek at the sounds we work on every day — and the ages most children have them. If one is late or sticky, that is a reason to talk, not a verdict.
Most children have this by age 7
Snake S
A skinny stream of air down the middle of the tongue.
Try this at home: Smile a little, keep the tongue inside, and hiss a long snake.
From the nest
“We came in because nobody outside the house understood her. Six months later she ordered her own hot chocolate. I cried on the sidewalk — in a good way.”
Leah P.
Parent of a 4-year-old
Speech-language pathologist
Maya Ellison
Early language · speech sounds · parent coaching
Maya opened The Learning Nest after a decade in hospitals and schools — skilled rooms, fluorescent lights, parents waiting in a hallway. She wanted therapy that looked like the rest of a child’s life: play, a parent who knows the cue, a clinician on the rug.
Our story
Ready when you are.
A 20-minute parent consult is the gentlest first step. No child required. No pressure to book a package.