About Vanessa’s Work

Vanessa Galeano is a licensed speech-language pathologist, certified brain injury specialist, and founder of Sips to Spoonfuls. She was raised in New York and made it out to the west coast in 2016. She is bilingual in English and Spanish.

Through Sips to Spoonfuls, she provides comprehensive evaluations and therapy services to pediatrics and adults with a wide variety of disorders including dysphagia, food or sensory aversion, picky eating, g-tube dependence, oral motor impairment, reduced cognitive flexibility and severe picky eating. Her extensive medical training qualifies her to treat individuals with complex medical and neurological issues.

She utilizes evidence-based strategies and a family-centered approach to assure individuals are getting the nutrients they need while they learn strategies to cope with how difficult eating can be.

Her passion is helping individuals with feeding difficulties. One of her first jobs was as a ResHab worker, where she provided in-home care to children with special needs. She was paired with a young boy and was given a list of his limitations. Over time, she found that this boy with so many limitations had a HUGE personality and to her surprise at the time had every intention of being independent. She discovered that although he could not communicate or eatin the way she always knew, he was incredibly capable of expressing his wants, needs, and feelings, and he was able to eat almost everything under the sun as long as it was pureed. She learned that we do not always need to have children do what “normal” is, but instead, if we are creative, we can modify the world to meet their needs. After a short while of working with him, she changed her career focus and knew she was meant to be a speech-language pathologist with specialty in feeding and swallowing. What could be more significant than helping someone find their voice and learn to have fun eating?

About Vanessa’s Education and Experience

She received her bachelor’s and master’s degree from St. John’s University in New York and obtained her license in 2013. She has worked across all ages and several diagnoses at an intensive day-patient feeding program and across inpatient and outpatient settings at one of the top children’s hospitals in the country. She has co-led in the development of an inpatient intensive feeding program and has contributed to hospital wide protocols to better identify and treat avoidant restrictive food intake disorder.