Imagine if you couldn’t communicate successfully. It would affect your entire life from school and work to building relationships and making connections. Communication is truly a superpower, but sometimes, people need a little support to communicate clearly and effectively.
“I knew I wanted to be in a field where I was helping, and I knew I loved being around kids,” says Sydney Bridenstine, owner of Olive Branch Speech Therapy. “I had a friend approach me and say, ‘Have you heard about the communication disorders major?’ She was talking about how you help people learn to communicate, and I thought that sounded so interesting.”
Speech, she shares, is something she’s been passionate about since she was a child herself.
“Looking back on my childhood, I was correcting my friends’ speech when I was a kid,” Sydney laughs. “I remember there was this boy who couldn’t say the word ‘girl’ so I coached him on it. I also always had trouble with my name, people thought it was ‘Cindy’ and I would have to coach them.”
Being from Chattanooga, Sydney completed the Tennessee trifecta by attending graduate school at the University of Memphis and ultimately landing in Nashville. She worked for the Rutherford and Davidson County public school systems as a speech-language pathologist, but once she welcomed her first child, the stars aligned and she went out on her own as a private practice.
“It’s just been slowly and steadily growing since then. It’s been such a blessing every step of the way, and I never really anticipated that it would all work out this way,” Sydney shares.
Olive Branch Speech Therapy is an entirely mobile practice with therapists serving all of Davidson and Williamson counties, and supporting a handful of area schools as well. Speech services range far and wide but include articulation (how to make speech sounds), language therapy (understanding and expression of words), stuttering, and even feeding challenges and alternative communication.
While the team is always ready to answer questions specific to each child’s needs, there are a few developmental milestones to consider, particularly that children should start using words between nine and 18 months. Sometimes, it takes a little extra support to get the communication flowing.
“Being able to see the kids reach their maximum potential, and be able to communicate with their family, is incredibly rewarding,” Sydney shares. “When I can come in and create a support system and help a child communicate what they need, all of a sudden it just opens up their entire world and they just take off.”
The transformations Sydney and her team are able to facilitate are remarkable. She recalls a two-year-old who wasn’t able to use any verbal words, but after a few months of play-based speech therapy, she’s now speaking in full sentences (nonstop!).
While Olive Branch Speech Therapy deploys therapists across Middle Tennessee, Sydney is based right here in Bellevue. Together with her husband and three children, she enjoys supporting the community and watching the area flourish.
“We’ve been blown away by how friendly everyone is out here,” Sydney shares. “It’s so family-friendly, and we feel incredibly safe out here. Now that we have some good shopping and some good restaurants, we feel really lucky.”
For more information or to book an evaluation, visit OliveBranchSpeech.com.