Interview with Dr. Lesley Sylvan

We explore how SLPs can move from isolated caseloads to collaborative workload using a Multi-Tiered System of Support. Leslie Sylvan shares why prevention, data, and shared ownership at Tier One create clearer decisions, stronger inclusion, and more joy in our work.

• what MTSS is and why it matters
• the three tiers as a continuum of support
• SLP impact at Tier One to shape instruction
• collaboration, data use, and evidence-based choices
• inclusion and least restrictive environment in practice
• supporting students on the cusp without over-referral
• shifting from caseload to workload for efficiency
• AAC integrated at Tier One for equity and access
• mindset shifts to see MTSS as enabling, not additive
• finding creativity, confidence, and collective efficacy

If this episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear about it. Share your experiments, your questions, your ha ha moments, because your experience matters and may be exactly what another SLP needs to hear

https://sarahdowlingschoolslpcoaching.com

Transcript

Welcome And Purpose Of The Show

Sarah 0:02

Welcome back to the Aligned SLP. I'm Sarah Dowling. If you're new here, this is where school-based SLPs stop being clinical islands and start being collaborative partners. We're ditching the impossible caseload, embracing the workload approach, and reclaiming our joy as professionals aligned with the education world. Today I'm excited to be able to introduce you to Dr. Lesley Sylvan. We became friends over the pandemic when she provided a series of workshops, book studies to speech language pathologists in BC. So welcome, Lesley. Hi, Sarah. I'd like you to introduce yourself.

Lesley 0:47

Well, first of all, thanks for having me. It's very exciting to be on this new podcast. My name is Lesley Sylvan. I'm an associate professor at Montclair State University, which is in New Jersey. And prior to my academic work, I was a school-based speech language pathologist. I worked in New York City and I also worked in San Francisco, so both the East Coast and the West Coast. And now I teach coursework. I'm the program director of our speech language pathology program. And I focus a lot of my research on the role of school-based speech, the role of school-based speech language pathologists in varying educational frameworks, especially multi-tiered systems of support. And I've written a book on that topic, several articles, have a Facebook group. It's one of my favorite topics to talk about. So I'm really happy to be here today.

Sarah 1:39

Thank you very much. I'm very happy that you're here as well. So as you've said, you're very interested in multi-tiered systems of support, as am I. And you wrote a book about it. So can you just describe briefly what multi-tiered systems of support are? What do speech language pathologists need to know about it?

What MTSS Really Is

The Three Tiers Explained

Lesley 2:01

So that's a great question. So MTSS stands for Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, and oftentimes we'll refer to it by MTSS. And it is a general education framework. So one thing that's important for speech language pathologists to know is that we are not the only educational professionals that are thinking about and participating in this framework. And the idea of MTSS is to be a proactive prevention-oriented framework to try to meet and address students' needs flexibly and proactively. And so one key feature of multi-tiered systems of support is this idea of multiple tiers. So oftentimes, if you've heard of MTSS or you've seen any articles about it, you'll see a triangle or a pyramid model that shows tier one, two, and three. Always tier one is the biggest tier, and that refers to the tier that all students are receiving as part of their general education. So that's tier one, that's the core instruction, the general instruction, ideally, that is provided in a very responsive, proactive way to meet the needs of most of our learners. However, we anticipate that some of our learners are going to need a higher level of support. And that's where tier two, which is a higher level of support, and then tier three, which is an even higher level of support, come in. Some of the key features of MTSS is that it's a model that really puts a strong emphasis on collaboration. Really, nobody can do MTSS in isolation. It's a strong emphasis on collaboration between educational specialists, teachers, all the other people that are supporting children within a school. Also puts a strong emphasis on looking at data to make decisions, thinking about decisions about what level of support students need, decisions about eligibility when it's appropriate. Also puts a strong emphasis on evidence-based practice and thinking about using instructional and intervention approaches that are based on evidence and based on data. And another sort of most important part of it is that there's really an emphasis on prevention. And it kind of gets away from the binary idea of either you're in general education completely or you're in special education and you get lots of, you know, more specialized services. Kind of tries to break down that barrier and really look at the continuum of support across the tiers with a focus on trying to address problems as they emerge and before they become, you know, bigger, if possible. So that's a little introduction.

Sarah 4:37

Brilliant and I love that you the phrase continuum of support um came out because that was the title of the the system that we had in Prince in we have in Prince George in Prince.

Lesley 4:48

Oh, very nice.

Sarah 4:49

Yeah, we call it the continuum of support. So thank you. And um so for SLPs, um is in the US, I know that there's many school districts actually using MTSS, and in Canada there's some um provinces that are using MTSS on some districts, but in a way it feels in Canada where the SLPs are driving it, but in in the US, the SLPs are learning how to be part of it. So um what do you feel are the the strengths? We we're so used to working with caseloads. Um what what are the strengths of trying to work more in an MTSS model?

Why SLPs Belong At Tier One

Lesley 5:31

So I would say that one of the most important strengths is the opportunity to think about how we can use our unique skills and expertise to contribute to the tier one level. We know that the tier one level is the sort of foundation for all students. It's the foundation from which any other tiers of support that we might be involved wouldn't rest in. And making sure that communication needs, language needs, speech needs, all the areas that we focus on are addressed in a very strong way at the tier one level really lays that foundation. It's helpful both, of course, for getting kids on the pathway to making progress with all the skills that we want to see them make progress with, but also for help for helping us differentiate between students that may be struggling because of lack of a strong tier one support system or for, you know, and more identified disability. So another important reason, that first key reason is to contribute to the tier one level. But part of that is that by doing so, we can set ourselves up to really collect relevant data to inform strong decision making and make appropriate eligibility decisions, right? We want children to be included in the general education classroom, included at the tier one level to the maximum extent possible. There's decades of support around inclusion. In the United States, we talked about least restrictive environment and wanting children to be in the least restrictive environment with their peers. So by contributing to the tier one level, we can make sure that that environment is as strong as it can be for the skills that we focus on. And then we can see which children are not responding to that level of instruction and may need greater levels of support. So it can help us with our decision making and help us be able to use our time wisely and efficiently, really, with the students that need our unique expertise beyond that tier one level. So those are two key reasons. Um, the other reason I started to mention that it moves us away from this binary approach is that it gives us an opportunity or a framework to support students who are performing below grade level and meet their needs without relying solely on special education and pull-out services. So we always, all SLPs have like a soft spot in their hearts, right? For the kids that were like, they're not quite low enough that they're going to be eligible or appropriate for receiving speech services, and yet they're not thriving academically where we want them to be. So this gives us a way to support those students that are like on the cusp or right below. There's lots of different ways to think about it and make sure that we kind of veer them onto the right path and that we can use our expertise to do so and make a really big difference. Um the third reason I think is we've talked about inclusion and its importance. And MTSS does not always mean that we bring our service to the classroom, but oftentimes it may mean that our services look a lot more inclusive, and that can provide us an opportunity to meet the needs of students with identified disability in both a more efficient and an inclusive manner by integrating speech language services and speech language expertise into the general classroom.

Collaboration, Data, And Inclusion

Sarah 8:42

Yeah, I love that. And that's that's the experience I had working within the system was getting trying to understand how to support the whole classroom. I'm not saying I was perfect at it at any level, but but that ability to to have a reason to do that, um, to be supporting that tier one and working at how we get the information to then make the decisions about supporting the schools with the targeted intervention. Um and and then going into the the tier three with you know, the students that then came onto my caseload for me to actually do some direct work with, then it was more influenced by that. So it might I might do some typical assessment and the classic speech language pathology um work, but then I'd be focusing on getting back into the classroom, you know, what was that work was then reinforming what was happening back in the classroom. Um, and I started getting much more interesting conversations with teachers through working in this way. And once they understand that you're you're wanting to support them in the classroom, um, I think it changes the dynamics of the relationship.

Lesley 9:52

Absolutely. And one of my favorite things to talk about about kind of a research finding related to MTSS is this idea of building collective efficacy. So, you know, you're talking about kind of getting into the classroom, and you know, we're certainly not here to judge the teachers, but to empower the teachers, to collaborate, to partner. And then, you know, when we think about speech language needs, it's not like just our domain or kids with speech and language problems like our issues. It's like these are all our shared students, right? So it's not like, okay, I've identified this child, it's not my problem anymore. It's your problem, you know, speech language pathologist. It's like, how can we work together? And when SLPs and teachers work closely together, they can both gain confidence, right? Both in understanding what the curriculum is and how to understand speech and language skills in the classroom. And so teachers can really become like our key partners and collaborators for working together. And students can get support for speech and language all throughout their day, not just in the sessions that they have with us, which are always necessarily limited.

Sarah 10:58

Yeah, I absolutely agree. It changes your relationship and your respect for teachers when you start working in this way. Um, I'm a very big fan of promoting that, you know, equal perspective of our relationship, that we're all learning from each other. Um, so I really like to hear that. Yeah, yeah, that's great. So we're both big fans, obviously, um, worked within the systems. Um, and I've experienced both positives and negatives throughout the learning process. Uh, what do you feel are the main challenges for some of our SLPs in working in this way? I know you did some research on this.

Shifting From Caseload To Workload

Lesley 11:37

Yes, I did do some research on this. And I feel like one of the big challenges is that initially it can feel like one more thing to do, right? Every SLP feels like I'm very busy. We have so much to do, there's so many children that we can support in schools. And I feel like a natural first reaction to hearing about any new framework or any new ways of thinking about things, or like, who has time for that, right? No SLP ever walks around and says, Oh, I have, you know, a lot of free time. What else? What else could I be doing? But I think that getting over the idea or kind of brainstorming around the idea of like, is this additive or is this actually a way to make my job more easier and more manageable? And I think that in the research that I've done with how SLPs actually navigate this, those who are able to start thinking about how in being engaged with MTSS is actually complementary and helpful to their overall workload end up feeling a lot more success. And those who feel like, okay, once I'm done with everything else, then I will get to MTSS and add it on top, end up feeling more frustrated. So some of the ways that we can think about how MTSS can be helpful to us is that it can help us address the needs of children before we identify them for special education and have pull out service. And sometimes that can be done more quickly or more efficiently, right? When we think about an ounce of prevention is, you know, better than a pound of, you know, remediation or whatever the phrase is, that really is relevant to MTSS, right? We can be helping kids as soon as problems start to or challenges start to crop up rather than waiting. Um, and so that is one way of thinking about it. That can also sometimes reduce some of the paperwork trail. When we work closely with partners and with teachers, we also have that support for reinforcing skills, both the skills that we're working on in speech sessions or skills that are related to us. And so children may make more um rapid progress. So when we can start to think about ways like how can MTSS help me, it's not like a selfish way of thinking about it as an SLP, right? How can it help me be more efficient? How can it help me be more effective? Then that's when I feel like the greater success has, rather than thinking of it as an extra or additive responsibility.

Supporting Students On The Cusp

Sarah 14:03

Yeah, I absolutely agree. Um, I felt that it it made me more effective and it focused my attention on which children I was actually going to work with and which teachers were responsive and open and I I could work with, and then they would get excited and influence other teachers. And um it was it was it it made the whole process so much clearer about which were the children that I, as an SLP within the school system, could focus on that only I could do that work. Um and but teachers were working with language constantly and communication constantly. Um and in literacy, you know, obviously there's speech-related activities there as well. So um, yeah, yeah. And I love I love the fact that um you recently talked about AAC at Tier One because that was one mistake I made. Um that I didn't make that move fast enough. I took it on my shoulders that I was the AAC person and and made a big mistake and it didn't work out very well. And um, so I was really pleased to see that you've done that because I think it is like the last barrier that we have to overcome and understanding that's also it's also tier one.

Lesley 15:21

Um Right, right. And I've been one of the things that I've been spending a lot of time with is thinking about MTSS and AAC most recently, because um I mentioned I have a book on MTSS and just turned in a whole second revision revision of it. And in this revision, it has an entire chapter dedicated to AAC. So there's so much that I can say about the integration of AAC and the MTSS framework. But, you know, I think it's just very exciting. And I think what it leads to is a lot of innovation and excitement and new ideas. And I feel like, you know, when you ask about the challenges, that's something that I feel like SLPs should really try to keep in mind. It's so hard, right? When we're all so busy and overwhelmed. But like this is an opportunity to be innovative and also feel that you're using the your specific skills, um, your unique expertise in a very applicable way that um allows you to focus your attention on the children that truly need your individual skills, but then also make a difference for as many children as possible. So that is um, I think really the heart of MPSS. And then AAC, you know, fits right into that as well.

Sarah 16:33

I think that's absolutely the heart of it. And I think that's the joy of it, and I think that's the creativity. I feel very passionate that uh it helps us to be much more creative because we're now working with other brains, we're working with teachers and marrying those two, you know, ideas, professions together. I think we've become much more creative about how to help our students. So I think it does lead to quite a lot of excitement and feeling part of something and not so isolated. So yeah, I really appreciate it. We'll have to um continue this discussion on um another time. Um we've got lots we could cover.

Lesley 17:10

We have so much to cover, but thank you for having me even for this brief conversation. Um, and I um I just really appreciate you having me here. This is a great conversation.

Classroom Partnerships That Stick

Sarah 17:21

Thank you very, very much. And um, yeah, yeah, we'll see you again, I'm sure. Okay, thank you a little. Thank you very much. Thank you for spending time with me today. Here's what I want you to take away. You're not failing. The system is asking you to do the impossible, and you're doing the best with what you have. But there is a different way. And remember, you're not alone in this. We're building something new together. One conversation, one collaboration, and one small change at a time. If this episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear about it. Share your experiments, your questions, your ha ha moments, because your experience matters and may be exactly what another SLP needs to hear. Until next time, stay curious and be kind to yourself. I'm Sarah Dowling, and this has been the Aligned SLP.