JOURNEY PEDIATRIC THERAPY
Each child reaches their desired destination through their own JOURNEY. We are here to assist in ensuring that happens with proven therapy practice and techniques on an intentionally individualized platform.
Meet the Team
Sara Exsted, MS CCC-SLP
Sara Exsted, MS CCC-SLP is a co-founder of Journey Pediatric Therapy and a speech therapist.
Sara has spent the duration of her 15-year career practicing in outpatient pediatrics. Her goal is to connect with each child at their level, while supporting caregivers for a collaborative approach. Each session is unique, individualized, and tailored to your child’s needs and goals.
Her passion and experience for pediatric learning has earned her the American Speech and Hearing Association’s award for Continuing Education (ACE Award). As a result, your child’s interventions are supported by the most up to date research and therapy techniques. Sara’s clinical interests include children with autism, intense behaviors, apraxia, and late talkers.
When Sara is not working, she enjoys spending time with her husband, 2 kids and 5 pound pup, Duke! She loves summers at the Lake and a cold Diet Coke for breakfast.
Tiana Hoyez, MS CCC-SLP
Tiana Hoyez, MS CCC-SLP is a co-founder of Journey Pediatric Therapy and speech therapist.
Tiana has a passion for working with pediatrics. She strives to provide unique and effective therapy experiences for each of her clients. She loves collaborating with other disciplines to enhance each child's therapy. Special areas of interest include hearing loss, language delays, behavior management and AAC.
When Tiana is not working, she enjoys spending time with her friends and family, traveling and petting every dog she sees on a walk. She is determined to convince Starbucks to make a larger size for nitro cold brew coffee.
Kelsey Thomas, MS OTR/L
Kelsey Thomas, MS OTR/L has both pediatric and adult clinical experience. Her most recent 5 years of experience include working with pediatrics in an outpatient setting.
Kelsey strives to be a client-centered therapist, working with children and their families to determine and address goals that are most important to them. Special interest areas include autism spectrum disorder (ASD), sensory integration, and anxiety/trauma.
When Kelsey is not working, she enjoys spending time with her husband and daughter! She also considers herself a "foodie," frequently trying new restaurants and testing new tasty recipes.
Cheryl Adkins, MA CCC-SLP
Cheryl Adkins, MA CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist with more than 20 years’ experience in pediatrics. She has guest lectured on pediatric speech-language pathology for more than 15 years at the University of Minnesota, and has taught a continuing education course on best practice in diagnosis and treatment of childhood apraxia of speech.
Cheryl is a client-centered clinician who values collaboration with parents, other therapists, and physicians to optimize outcomes. She specializes in motor speech disorders, pediatric dysphagia, early childhood language development, cleft palate, and other craniofacial syndromes. Cheryl also has extensive experience working with children having Down syndrome, autism, and a variety of developmental disorders.
Outside of work, Cheryl enjoys reading, Pilates and attending concerts. She loves traveling to new places with her family. Cheryl is a lifelong sports fan and also a lifelong fan of warm chocolate chip cookies!
Emily Clarkin, MA OTR/L
Emily Clarkin, MA OTR/L, has experience with both pediatric and adult populations.
Emily has always had a strong passion for working with children of all ages and loves having the opportunity to help clients reach their individual goals. She values collaboration with other therapist and healthcare professionals to provide comprehensive, quality care that is both meaningful and motivating to her clients. Emily's areas of interest include sensory integration, a variety of developmental disorders and challenging behaviors.
When Emily is not working, she enjoys traveling, hiking and spending time with family and friends. She loves exploring new restaurants and is determined to visit all the national parks!
Alissa Frank, DPT
Alissa graduated from Marquette University with her undergraduate degree in Exercise Science and her Doctorate of Physical Therapy. She’s practiced in variety of settings with adults and pediatrics throughout her 15 year career and is so excited to be working with the kids of Journey! Professional areas of interest include gait and balance disorders, neurologic disorders, and autism spectrum disorder. ‘My goal as a therapist is to meet your child where they are in their developmental abilities, and progress through play. Therapy should be fun!’
Outside of Journey, Alissa stays busy entertaining and chauffeuring her 3 kids around town and checking out new restaurants with her husband. She is an avid soccer fan, cheering especially hard for the US woman’s team. She enjoys camping and hiking, despite an insane fear of snakes, and is on a quest to see all of the National Parks.
Kim Gross, MA CCC-SLP
Kim Gross, MA CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist with more than 15 years' experience working with children with communication and swallowing disorders.
With evidenced based knowledge and her passion to help children succeed, Kim strives to provide the best possible care to children and their families. She has extensive training and years of experience working with infants who have difficulties breast or bottle feeding and/or transitioning to solids. She has also worked in the NICU, PICU and outpatient clinic settings evaluating and treating muscle-based and sensory-based infant and children feeding disorders. In addition, she has specialized training in Orofacial Myofunctional Disorders (OMDs) along with Tethered Oral Tissues including tongue and lip ties. Over the past several years, she has earned American Speech and Hearing Association's awards for Continuing Education (ACE Award) for demonstrating an exemplary commitment to lifelong learning.
When not working, Kim can be found spending time with her husband, three sons and their Corgi, Bentley. She also enjoys working out with her girlfriends, traveling, reading and grooving to hip hop!
Abby Trebelhorn, MS CCC-SLP
Abby Trebelhorn, MS CCC-SLP specializes in pediatric speech therapy.
Passionate about making a difference in the lives of her clients, Abby finds joy in helping children and their families achieve milestones, both big and small. By understanding the unique needs of each child, she employs evidence-based strategies to develop comprehensive and personalized treatment plans, fostering effective and efficient progress. Abby’s interests revolve around late talkers, expressive/receptive language disorders, and motor speech disorders.
In her free time, Abby enjoys listening to audiobooks, hiking, and spending time at the lake with family and friends. She is a pop culture enthusiast and crushes a trivia night.
Cassie Hagen, MS OTR/L
Cassie Hagen, MS OTR/L has experience working with a wide age range within pediatric populations.
Cassie enjoys collaborating with families to promote carryover of skills across environments as well as providing individualized treatments to each client. She has completed continuing education courses on toe walking to assist with evaluating and treating sensory and musculoskeletal gait patterns as well as continuing education on handwriting skills and progressions.
Cassie's areas of interest include handwriting, sensory integration, and a variety of developmental disorders.
When Cassie is not working, she enjoys traveling, spending time with family and friends, and taking her dog on walks.
Mara lewandoski MS OTR/L
Mara Lewandoski, MS OTR/L has experience with both pediatric and adult populations in the outpatient setting. Mara focuses on creating relationships with children of all ages and abilities using play, humor, and creativity in order to help clients meet their goals! She strives to collaborate with client families and other team members to provide holistic, client-centered care. Mara’s areas of interest include anxiety, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and developmental disorders.
In her spare time, Mara enjoys spending time with family and friends, playing cribbage (or any game) with her husband, drinking iced coffee, and listening to Taylor Swift! Most of her summer is spent traveling to her husband’s town ball baseball games - Go Bullfrogs!
Trainings and Certifications
Our Therapists Take Pride in Offering Research-Based Therapy Including:
- PROMPT
- Beckman Oral Motor Program
- Kaufman Speech Praxis Program
- Dynamic Tactile and Temporal Cueing
- SATPAC
- Floortime
- Relationship Development Intervention
- Talk Tools Oral Motor Placement Therapy
- Specialized Training in Tethered Oral Tissues (TOTS)
- SOFFI Method: Supporting Oral Feeding in Fragile Infants
- Advanced Clinical Practices in the NICU
- Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder
- Sequential Oral Sensory (SOS) approach to Feeding
- Food Chaining Approaches
- Talk Tools Feeding Therapy
- Socially Thinking
- Emotional Freedom Technique