Meet Kaitlyn Crawford | Pediatric Speech-Language Pathologist and Feeding Specialist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kaitlyn Crawford and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kaitlyn, how does your business help the community?
Effectively and efficiently communicating your wants and needs from an early age has tremendous impact on the trajectory of your life. The state of California gets this, which is why they have the Early Start program – covering therapy services, free of charge, for children 0-3 years of age. This program is offered statewide and in Los Angeles, there are 5 regional centers offering this service to families.

If you live on the West Side, there are dozens Speech Pathologists who will provide services on behalf of this program. If you live in South Los Angeles, it’s a different story. There are fewer providers, who service areas like Expo Park, West Adams, Hyde Park, Historic South Central all the way to Compton, Watts, and Huntington Park.

Currently, more than 90% of the families I see for speech and feeding therapy are referrals from the South Central Los Angeles Regional Center (SCLARC). By partnering with SCLARC, services can be provided to the South Los Angeles community at large, without the families having to worry about how they will cover the cost.

But it’s not just about the children. It’s about partnering with families; sharing ideas and information about how to help their children speak and eat better. When one family has a positive experience with early intervention and therapy, that knowledge spreads to other families, strengthening communities.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My transition to working with young children and their families started back when I was working with adults and teens. I was frustrated treating problems that should have been caught and addressed early on. Eventually, I realized that the biggest opportunity for impact was working with children. The earlier the better. And beyond working with the individual child, I found even greater results working with caregivers (anyone who has a role to play in children’s lives like: parents, grandparents, teachers, siblings, extended family, foster parents, etc.) who are the child’s first and best teachers.

There’s a lot of emerging research in the field of speech pathology, which is a polite way to say there’s not a single best way to do the job. But the way I’m currently thinking about my work falls into two main ideas mindfulness and a having a strengths based approach.

Mindfulness sounds like a big LA cliche, but what it means to me, is being present with each child-caregiver pair and listening to what they’re actually saying. I’m doing my best to really observe and listen rather than jump right in with a possible solution. Often, caregivers can come to interesting solutions with a little bit of feedback and guidance from me. Then we sit and try the idea together. Maybe that’s a new way of offering a spoon to a child who won’t eat or waiting expectantly so the child has a turn to communicate first. I hope that this way of engaging with caregivers helps them to feel confident in their role as first and best teachers.

Mindfulness is also observation. Recently I started pushing caregivers to observe and describe what their children were doing, rather than initially assigning meaning or more simply, avoiding “like” and “don’t like’. Children are still gathering information and they’re looking to adults to help make sense of what they’re experiencing. This has been particularly helpful for my feeding clients. For example, instead of saying “they don’t like peas” what if we thought about it like “this is another opportunity to learn about peas”. Then we talk about the peas “they’re green, smooshy, round, etc.”but we don’t talk about like or don’t like. I hope that by sharing the idea of observing and describing, that caregivers can open up more experiences for their children.

Which takes me into my strengths based thinking. Every child is doing something interesting. My goal is to reframe a child’d behavior so that their caregivers can capitalize on their strengths to teach new skills. For example, rather than labeling a child having a tantrum as “attention seeking”, with all the negative connotations that go with it, I’ve started reframing as “connection seeking”. To me, this gets to the root of the problem, the child has unmet needs. Since they’re beginning communicators, the adults in their life need to help determine what that need is and then help them communicate it. When we can take a step back and assess what the child might need to communicate, we can compassionately help them through the moment, offering more effective ways to meet their wants and needs.

I’m committed to sharing these ideas because I think they have transformative potential for entire communities. When I share these ideas with my clients, my hope is that they will pass this knowledge along to friends/family/community members. We empower each other.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
For me, I feel the best parts of Los Angeles are the diversity of nature, culture, and food. My friends and family all know that we’re going to walk and we’re going to eat, I am a feeding therapist after all. For friends who come for a shorter time, typically we do the greatest hits itinerary. I definitely want to show friends the greatest hits, but also the South LA staples Angelenos may not see.

Day 1 we’d go to Griffith Park to see the Hollywood sign (hiking to it if they’re game), and the Observatory to get that great view (smog permitting) of all of Los Angeles. I love seeing the streets just go and go all the way south. It gives visitors a real idea of just how sprawling LA is. Hitting a spot in Thai Town for dinner is a must on the way home from watching the sun set. Pa Ord and Jitlada are a few favorites.

Day 2 we’d have to head for the beach, one of my favorite things to do in LA by a long shot. The Santa Monica Pier and Venice Beach are crowd favorites and we’d have to get a fruit cup and maybe a churro. But if we have more time, I’d rather take them to Playa Del Rey, my favorite spot to walk the bike path, lounge in the sand, and get lunch from Playa Provisions.

If we’ve got more time or it’s visit 2 or 3, we’d do some South LA hits.

Day 3, grab some coffee and a coffee cake from South LA cafe, my neighborhood cafe who’s doing so much for the community. Then we’d walk the trails at Kenneth Hahn park to see Los Angeles from a different view point. I really like the view of Downtown Los Angeles from the top. For dinner we’d have to grab some Delicious Pizza in West Adams or a welcome plate from Baba’s Vegan Cafe.

Day 4, grab some coffee at Patria Coffee in Compton, don’t sleep on the specialty lates. After that, we’d visit the Watts towers and grab a burger at Hawkins House of Burgers.

Day 5 would be dedicated to a food tour of Historic South Central. Coffee and an ube cookie from Cafe Calle, tamales and juice from a street vendor, chorizo tacos and asada vampiros from Tire Shop Taqueria, and if it’s Friday, tlayudas from Poncho’s Tlayudas. If it’s not Friday, we’d head to Holbox in Mercado La Paloma for some incredible seafood at the counter.

After all that eating and walking, we’ll need to relax! So if it’s a girlfriend, on Day 6 we’d go to Olympic Spa is a much needed escape to unwind and relax and grab some dinner at Guelaguetza.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I have a lot to be grateful for and have had such incredible support along the way!

After relocating to California and experiencing burn out from working in a fast-paced, high stress environment I was looking for a change. I was so lucky to meet my my mentor, Lauren Ferrari. She was my first mentor in Los Angeles when I worked for her private practice upon moving here. She not only put her trust in me, but took the time to mentor me, answer questions, and build me up so that I felt confident starting my own practice. She was supportive every step of the way and I’m only sad to not be able to work with her on a daily basis.

Lauren also introduced me to my accountant Nihar Parekh, who helped me to establish my cooperation. But more than that, he’s been such an incredible ally helping me to figure out the financial side of things, especially since I’ve never taken a single business class.

And lastly, I am delighted to have Jonathan Ehrlich, an incredible creative director/designer, as one of my best friends. During the pandemic when I working fewer hours trying to get my business off the ground, he graciously stepped in to help me with everything from my webpage to logo to brand book. The time and care that he took to really understand my profession and goals for the business shows.

I’ve had an incredible group of friends and family in my corner supporting me so I can focus on what I enjoy, working with young children and their families.

Website: www.crawfordsfinc.com

Instagram: @crawfordsfinc

Image Credits
Jonathan Ehrlich