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Meet the Speech-Language Pathologist Behind Little Voices Big Futures

Anissa C. Weimer, MS, CCC-SLP, is a speech-language pathologist, former elementary educator, author, and founder of Little Voices Big Futures, an educational platform helping parents, caregivers, and early childhood professionals better understand and support young children's communication development in everyday life.

Her path to speech-language pathology began personally. As a parent concerned about her own daughter's communication, Anissa sought professional guidance and learned that her daughter was more than a year behind in expressive language. Yet the recommendation was simply to return for testing in six months. There was little guidance about what the family could do in the meantime. That experience stayed with her.

After 14 years as an educator teaching children from preschool through fifth grade, Anissa earned her Master of Science in Speech-Language Pathology from Longwood University in 2014. As an SLP, she went on to work across schools, early intervention, rehabilitation, contract services, and private practice. Across more than 25 years in education and speech-language pathology, she has worked with hundreds of children and families.

Her years in the schools reinforced something she had first experienced as a parent: families cannot fully participate in decisions about their children when they don't have the information they need. Too often, she watched parents enter meetings overwhelmed by unfamiliar terminology, recommendations, and processes rather than feeling like informed members of their child's team.

In 2020, Anissa founded Bright Strides Therapy, a pediatric speech-language pathology practice in Virginia, where she has since served more than 150 children and their families. She later created Little Voices Big Futures to extend that work beyond the therapy room and make reliable information about early communication development more understandable and usable in everyday life.

Anissa is the creator and author of the three-book Little Voices Big Futures series and host of the Little Voices Big Futures podcast. She also develops resources and professional development for parents, caregivers, and early childhood educators and is a certified Baby Signs® instructor. Her writing has been featured in Dr. Anne Zachry’s blog, Pediatric Occupational Therapy Tips, and she is a member of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

She holds a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education from Holy Family University in Philadelphia, PA and a Master of Science in Speech-Language Pathology from Longwood University in Farmville, VA.

At the center of her work is a simple belief: adults shouldn't need a professional degree to understand how to support a child's communication. When parents and educators have better information, they can ask better questions, make more confident decisions, and make communication part of everyday life.