Voice, Swallowing, & Speech Therapy Services in Milwaukee, WI

When your voice doesn't sound, feel, or function the way you want it to, you may be diagnosed with a voice disorder. Some common diagnoses are:

• Benign vocal fold lesions, like vocal fold nodules or polyps

• Vocal fold paralysis or paresis

• Voice changes due to aging, like presbyphonia

• Muscle tension dysphonia

• Vocal fatigue from heavy voice use careers like teaching, singing, ministry, or sales

We help you find a more comfortable, efficient way to use your voice. We look for the root cause of your voice changes and personalize your therapy so your voice doesn't hold you back, whether that means talking with friends at a noisy restaurant or leading a meeting at work.

Voice therapy is available for patients as young as 3.

Gender-affirming voice and communication therapy helps you find a voice that feels true to who you are. Using techniques tailored to your voice and goals rather than a standard protocol, we teach you to shape your voice in a healthy, sustainable way. 

Our approach centers on making you feel safe and comfortable before any voice work begins, getting to know you and answering your questions. This process can sometimes feel vulnerable or new, and you deserve unconditional support along the way.

We also offer:

• Singing instruction 

• Peri-operative voice care for patients pursuing or recovering from gender-affirming voice surgery
  

Difficulty swallowing can affect the safety or comfort of chewing, drinking, or eating. It can happen because of:

• A medical event or hospitalization

• Stroke, traumatic brain injury, or other neurological conditions

• Treatment for head and neck cancer

• Muscle tension or anxiety around swallowing

We teach proven strategies and strengthening exercises to improve your swallowing safety and comfort.

We also offer intensive swallow therapy, or "swallow bootcamps” using a program called the McNeill Dysphagia Therapy Program (MDTP) to gradually advance your diet and progressively strengthen your swallow system. 

For muscle tension or anxiety-related swallowing difficulty, we also integrate manual therapy, such as oral and laryngeal massage.

Facial retraining therapy is used when an injury to your facial nerve has affected your ability to move your face the way you want to. This can happen from: 

• Bell's palsy

• Acoustic neuromas

• Salivary gland tumors

• Ramsay Hunt syndrome

• Lyme disease

• Trauma to the face

Therapy combines soft tissue release, like stretching, massage, and trigger point release, with movement retraining focused on slow, controlled, symmetrical facial expressions.

Manual therapy is a hands-on approach used alongside voice and swallowing treatment, including assessment, stretching, laryngeal massage, myofascial release, and soft tissue mobilization to relieve muscle tension. It's often paired with other voice or swallow exercises to maximize your results.

Manual therapy can help with:

• Muscle tension dysphonia

• Hyperfunctional voice disorders, like vocal fold nodules or polyps

• Functional aphonia

• Muscle tension dysphagia

• Fear of swallowing

• Facial synkinesis

• Laryngeal hypersensitivity

• Chronic cough

• Paradoxical vocal fold motion (PVFM)

• Vocal Cord Dysfunction (VCD)

Manual therapy can be used to target ease of voicing, swallowing, breathing, and moving your face, along with decreased pain or strain in your voice and singing.

Breathing therapy for the upper airway specifically targets shortness of breath caused by tightening or an obstruction in your throat, not your lungs.

Common diagnoses include:

• Irritable larynx syndrome

• Exercise-induced laryngeal obstruction

Therapy focuses on laryngeal control techniques, designed to help you regain control of your breathing, along with education on general voice and throat care.

Breathing therapy is available for patients 12 and up, including student athletes managing breathing difficulty during sports like swimming and track.

Cough therapy targets disorders of the upper airway. We teach you behavioral strategies for cough suppression and techniques to decrease the sensitivity of your throat.

Common diagnoses include:

• Chronic cough

• Globus sensation (sensation of lump in the throat)

Therapy focuses on laryngeal control techniques, designed to help you regain control of your cough, along with education on general voice and throat care.

Articulation therapy helps patients of all ages build clearer, more confident speech sounds. We can:

• Assess your speech using an objective articulation test

• For pediatric patients, we can create a therapy plan based on needs already identified through school-based services and collaborate with your child's school-based therapy team

• Work with children who didn't qualify for school-based services but want focused support building clearer speech

• For adult patients, target speech changes/dysarthria after a neurological event such as a stroke