Margaret M. Bourne

Speech & Feeding Therapy

Welcome to Oral Motor Speech and Feeding Therapy. Margaret Bourne's small family-centered clinic provides speech and language, oral-motor, and feeding therapy for children ranging in ages from infants to young adults.

The clinic services include consultations, evaluations, and ongoing therapy for children in need of speech or feeding services.

Margaret believes that therapy should be a motivating, fun-filled yet highly productive experience that yields steady progress. Collaboration with families and other professionals is a key ingredient in her recipe for success.

Margaret Bourne - MS CCC, SLP

Margaret Bourne has been in private practice in the bay area since 2001. She received her Master of Science in Communicative Disorders Summa Cum Laude from San Francisco State University. Margaret has experience working with children and adults in a variety of settings including schools, out-patient hospitals, clinics, and homes. Margaret especially enjoys working with families and their infants and young children with speech and feeding needs. In her free time she can be found biking in Marin, skiing in Tahoe, shopping at the farmer’s market or gardening in her backyard.

You can reach Margaret by phone at 415.577.4210, email at [email protected] or by filling out a contact form.

Services

Language Development

Receptive and expressive language development including development of vocabulary and grammar needed to clearly communicate one’s thoughts and wishes to others.

Margaret working with an older child on articulation and speech clarity

Articulation & Speech Clarity

Learning the correct placement for accurate production of sounds in words and running speech so that speech can be understood easily.

Language-Based Learning Disabilities

Including development of pre-reading skills, sound/symbol correspondence, reading (decoding and sight words) and oral and written narratives.

Feeding Therapy

Addressing eating problems secondary to sensory and/or skill-based feeding issues, including children who are g-tube dependent, picky eaters, demonstrating difficulty transitioning from bottle to solids, or purees to foods requiring chewing. Our therapy technique is based on both:

Kay Toomey’s SOS (Sequential Oral Sensory) Feeding Approach

Development of oral-motor skills necessary for efficient feeding and swallowing: including lip seal for back swallow, chewing skills, tongue lateralization, and jaw strength.

Margaret doing feeding therapy with a child

Client/child eating a carrot and working on oral-motor skills

Oral-Motor Therapy

Necessary to effectively treat children presenting with muscle-based issues that impact speech clarity and feeding development including Apraxia, Dysarthria, myofunctional tongue thrust, excessive drooling, and feeding skill development in infants and children.

Client/child eating a cookie and doing feeding therapy

Testimonials

Thank you!!! – for all you have done for us. We appreciate all the homework, advice, support, and your hard work. Our son has made so much progress. My greatest fear was that he would go to kindergarten and be unable to ask for help or ask to play a game. Thanks to you I know that he will be able to communicate just fine!

– KW, Santa Rosa 2020

Margaret and Mairead, We are so grateful for our time with you as you so lovingly encouraged our son’s development and independence. Thank-you for your dedication to our family and many others. You both brought patience and joy to us during a time that could have otherwise been stressful. Many thanks!

– SN, San Rafael 2019

Margaret, Thank-you again for all the help you gave to my son (and me)! We have come a long way. He is still doing great and has now gained 8 pounds since May. Thank you, thank you!

– M & J San Rafael 2018

Our 4-year-old son, Gabriel was only eating 4 foods, mainly sugar related. We were concerned he wasn't getting the nutrition his body needed to grow. After extensively reviewing feeding programs within the Bay Area, we felt Margaret’s program would be the best fit for Gabriel's needs. Since we were only visiting the US for 2 months during the summer, we wanted to have intensive feeding therapy. Gabriel had four 1-hour sessions a week for 8 weeks. Within those 8 weeks, he went from eating 3 chocolate-based cookies to eating a wide range of fruits, vegetables, bread, pasta, fish, several meats, peanut butter and milk. Now that we are home, he looks forward to eating his new foods and we have continued practicing the food school routine so that the variety of foods he eats continues to grow. We are super grateful to Margaret for her work with Gabriel, especially her ability to take away his fear of trying new foods and helping him appreciate new foods and tastes. She also encouraged us as parents to be patient and understand that these changes take time. This allowed us to adapt much more easily to the routine that would allow Gabriel to eat better. We would recommend this program to any parents whose children have difficulties eating.

– AP, Philippines 2017

For the past few years, our daughter L, has had trouble with her 'R' sounds. It was bad enough that she either avoided using the R sound around folks she didn't know that well, or was constantly being asked what she was saying. Margaret reinforced that our 5-year-old daughters' difficulty with the ‘R’ sound was very common, and quite treatable – Margaret prescribed weekly treatments with one of her talented staff. We went every week for about 4 months, and did our homework – and I can't believe I am saying this, but she speaks like an articulate, new person. I couldn't be happier with the experience. One of the best educational plans we have invested our time and energy into. Thanks Margaret!

– DM, San Rafael 2016

My daughter, who has a rare syndrome was referred to Margaret Bourne through our Early Intervention Program over five years ago. The ensuing years of established familiarity, expectation, and flexible approaches to my daughter's ever-changing feeding/communication therapy needs have been absolutely invaluable! Margaret's dedication, therapeutic flexibility and high expectation for success all combine to make her the best therapist in my daughter's life. I find myself constantly recommending her to others. A trusted consultant who combines good sense, no-nonsense and compassionate care….Margaret Bourne has a true gift for her chosen profession.

– TM, San Rafael 2014

Margaret, Because of you, Jack can chew and as a result, a whole new world has opened up for him. Thank-you for everything you’ve done. You truly are a miracle worker. Jack (and I) are going to miss seeing you every week.

– LL, San Francisco 2013

Our son began seeing Margaret for speech therapy just before turning 2. We were very concerned since he was hardly making any sounds, only saying a couple of words and his frustration and behavioral problems were increasing. Margaret worked closely with us that year ... provided frequent suggested speech homework and shared techniques to increase his jaw strength and decrease his oral motor sensitivity. She also worked closely with our OT to provide support around his sensory processing issues. He made steady progress and by the time he was three was speaking in ever increasing sentences. Margaret helped open a window into our bright little boy's mind and eased our frustration and his. Family and friends and finally strangers have come to understand him and his clever ideas and kind heart.

– RS, Oakland 2012

Thank YOU (and especially Mairead). Feeding therapy literally saved us as a family. We no longer feel stress or anxiety around feeding my daughter and mealtimes are a real joy now. I can give her a wide variety of foods and know that she will try a significant portion of them. She is finally a happy, healthy toddler. We are so very appreciative for all the hardwork you put into our sweet baby.

– JC, Mill Valley 2012

My son starting seeing Margaret and Mairead shortly after his OT recommended us to Margaret's practice. My son's speech was not as clear as it could have been mostly due to his sensory integration issues. After meeting with Margaret, it became quickly apparent that she could help him in many other ways besides his intelligibility. My son's sensory sensitivities were interfering with his ability to focus in a group or classroom setting. He was also having a difficult time explaining a story in proper order from start to finish. After working with Margaret and Mairead for almost a year, my son made an amazing turn-around in the classroom. When he started Kindergarten in the fall, his teachers said that he was following and participating in group discussions and had no problems focusing on his Kindergarten work. We were very grateful for their work.

– CH, Mill Valley 2012

My son was born without a connection from his esophagus to his stomach. This was corrected surgically to give him the potential ability to swallow and eat. Well, it wasn't this simple. He would only swallow small amounts of milk and as a result needed a NG tube, and later a G tube. Consequently, we were referred to a speech therapist that we faithfully went to 1-2 times a week, hoping that at some point, my son would be eating and we could stop giving him boluses through his tube. After about a year without any progress, I asked his therapist when she thought he would be able to eat. I will never forget her response "If he's ever going to eat". I then decided to take my child to see a different therapist and contacted Margaret Bourne's clinic.

We started feeding and speech therapy with Mairead Finn just before my son turned two. At first he would not allow her to brush his teeth, refused to try eating most foods and gagged with many textures. When Mairead told me he’d have his G-tube out by age 3, I thought to myself this lady is crazy. I kept bringing my son every week, doing all the homework exercises and slowly we started seeing the changes. He started eating more, and trying more and more foods. Gradually we began reducing the ratio of his g-tube feedings as his eating improved. His healthy twin sister joined in on his therapy, too. She was asking to see Mairead because the therapy session was done in a fun way that kids think of as play. A couple of months before he turned 3, my son’s G-tube accidentally came out and so we decided to keep it out! We could not believe that Mairead was right!!! Thank you Mairead and Margaret for the outstanding professionalism and wealth of knowledge and skill that got us to our goal of having our son eat orally and speak clearly. Thank you for believing in these kids and not giving up on them. I would not waste my time taking my child anywhere else but Margaret Bourne's clinic. They are the best!!!

– LE, San Rafael 2011

A year ago, it was hard to imagine that this day would come and Liv would speak freely, happily, – profusely! Yet here we are and so much of her progress is due to you. I can’t tell you how grateful our family is for your dedications and hard work with our Liv. Thank you for all – with joy and much affection.

– C&T, San Francisco 2004

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