Lesley Sylvan on her book and sabbatical

We explore how school-based SLPs can stop working in isolation and start building real MTSS change through shared responsibility for language across the school day. We unpack what makes innovation possible and what makes it sustainable so we are not relying on sheer determination to survive. 
• celebrating the second edition of a practical MTSS book grounded in real-world SLP stories 
• building Tier 1 language supports through school routines like drop-off and pick-up 
• using language-rich bulletin boards to prompt student talk and guide teacher language moves 
• naming the burnout risk when systems depend on individual creativity without structural support 
• learning from post-pandemic shifts in how schools see the role of speech-language services 
• expanding Tier 1 thinking with AAC culture-building and updated implementation tools 
• asking why the same barriers show up internationally and what that reveals about hidden rules 
If this episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear about it. Share your experiments, your questions, your aha moments, because your experience matters and may be exactly what another SLP needs to hear. 

https://sarahdowlingschoolslpcoaching.com

Music: Daniel Chui

Transcript

Welcome And Workload Mindset

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.

Second Edition Book And Stories

Sarah 0:26

So hi Lesley, welcome back to the podcast.

Lesley 0:30

Hi Sarah. Thank you so much for having me.

Sarah 0:33

So you've been doing some exciting things recently. I'd like to for you to share what you've been doing. Bring us up to date.

Lesley 0:42

Well, again, thank you for having me. My biggest news is that my second edition of my book just is just out. It was so exciting when it arrived on my doorstep. And I'm really thrilled to be able to share it with the world and to share it with interested readers. And the title is Multi-Tier Systems of Support, Implementation Tools for Speech Language Pathologists at Education. And this is the second edition of the book.

Sarah 1:09

Well done. So well done, you. That's fantastic. Thank you.

Lesley 1:15

Well, it's, you know, many things are a lot of work, but it really I could not have done it without the support of so many generous SLPs who shared their time with me, shared their stories with me. And in the book, there is about 48 real world stories, and about 32 of them are new for the second edition. So I spoke to many, many SLPs, both in the US and in Canada, as I was working on the second draft of this book. And the stories that they shared with me about dedication and creativity and the persistence that they had, you know, it helped motivate me for writing this book. And I feel like it also forms some very important content in the book as well.

Sarah 2:00

Yeah. Yeah, that's that's it is it's when I meet people and hear stories, you get so many different perspectives on what people are trying to do out there and um the barriers and the challenges, but also the excitement about where they can see it going as a profession that we need to, that something needs to shift. So yeah, those qualities um are so important.

Lesley 2:23

Absolutely. And you know, I'm a consider myself, I mean, I used to be a school-based SLP, but in the past decade or so, you know, really a researcher. So, you know, really connecting with practitioners and hearing what they're doing and integrating that with the current research, I feel like is really what my book is all about. It really, you know, interweaves all the latest publications, research data, and as along with the examples of people putting it into practice.

Sarah 2:51

So that's what I think makes this book so yeah, wonderful balance, wonderful. So, have you got any um examples of practitioners that you've spoken to and the ideas they're coming up with? Or personal or even the personality traits that you feel.

Lesley 3:08

Yeah. So I have so many examples. Um, but I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna share a few, you know, I'll start with one and then we'll see where we go

Building Tier 1 Language Culture

Lesley 3:18

from there. But you know, one thing that I noticed just across all the stories was this idea of people being really motivated, really dedicated, and you know, being willing to sort of question assumptions, push boundaries about what it means to be a school-based SLP in their implementation of MTSS. So I'm going to talk about a SLP who worked in a school that was like pre-K through second grade, that was the age group, that she was focused on really large caseload, um, what we call a Title I school. So a lot of children from, you know, diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, a lot of whom had challenges related to communication. And she decided that the only real way to make a difference in such a challenging setting was to really focus on building a culture where there was a collective responsibility for language development. So she realized this could not be her job alone. There were so many kids with so many needs, um, especially in the area related to just vocabulary, basic communication, that she decided to really focus on changing the school's culture. So she did a number of really interesting things, but I think that one of the things that really stood out to me is how she really got herself involved with the morning drop-offs and the afternoon pickups and really made them vocabulary learning time. So she would bring in different objects, like she gave an example of skis or a quilt, um, or you know, even things that had to do with, you know, food, like a pumpkin or, you know, something like that. And kids would see objects and they would get curious about it, they would ask questions, and then they would learn new words, words that, you know, some kids may have been exposed to in their day-to-day routines, but you know, some concepts that kids could have been missing. And it really became like a joyful and looked forward to part of, you know, arriving at school and leaving from school was having like a vocabulary learning moment. Um, another thing that she did, which I think was really amazing, and I talked to a number of SLPs that actually did that, is they leveraged their bulletin boards that maybe they had in the hall, maybe outside of their room, maybe in a different area of the school that were being utilized, and developed like language-rich activities that were part of the bulletin board. So it kind of made language learning part of the routine of the day. So maybe when kids were lining up to get water or, you know, waiting in line for the lunchroom or the restroom, it would have prompts of things like you could ask kids to do, really kinds of boards that would inspire kids to talk and do language. So she had some focused on different question words, some focused on prepositions. And there were some prompts for teachers of like, oh, what might you ask or what might you say to kind of get kids using their language as they view this bulletin board? So I felt like that was a really amazing way to think about building language learning throughout the whole day. And overall, I feel like she's just an example of one of the many SLPs that kind of push the boundaries of what it means to be a school-based SLP. So, what it doesn't mean is to sit in my room by myself working with every kid. It means to really create a culture of shared responsibility. And then, you know, I could go on and on about what this particular SLP did, but this was really the foundation, this tier one support for a genuine tiered model where everybody had a role, all the teachers and members of the school in supporting speech and language development. So that's an example of I think a great story.

Sarah 6:48

Yeah, and I think that's the motivation is we when we find ourselves in those really complex schools, you know, with high need, you've got it fires you up to find another way of doing it. Um yeah, absolutely. Um yeah.

Lesley 7:06

And I

Burnout And The Need For Structure

Lesley 7:07

felt like, you know, what was, you know, a little bit different for me than when I collected the stories. So the last time I wrote this book was in 2019, which feels like a different world because it was right before the pandemic. Um, I also spoke to really incredible SLPs every single time I reach out to people. But I felt like people were at, you know, many people were at a slightly different stage than they were. I feel like the pandemic really opened people's eyes to thinking about both how valuable we are in schools, as school-based SLPs, but also how we can't do it alone, right? Like how we need to be part of a broader collective community effort because language is everywhere and language is everything, right? Language can't be the like a little niche that one person focuses on. Language is just embedded through academics, through friendships, through all kinds of things that, you know, make the school experience what we want for children. Um, but you know, listening to all these stories really kind of made me reflect upon how much we sort of rely on, as school-based SLPs, individuals' creativity and determination and motivation. And nearly everybody faced challenges. They faced barriers, right, which they had to kind of push against to help question assumptions. So that gave me a lot of food for thought as well, right? Like, is it sustainable? It's kind of a burden on school-based SLPs to always be the ones to say, this isn't what's expected of me, but I'm going to change the assumptions. I'm going to push the boundaries. And, you know, I think that that is something important for us to all reflect upon. How much do we should we rely upon creativity and sheer determination versus structural support.

Sarah 8:50

Yeah, it can end up being very isolating if you're the only one that's thinking that way. Yeah. And and we do burn out if, you know, I've been there, done that. Um, you know, we do burn out if with if we've got enthusiasm and determination and persistence, and but there's the system's not carrying us, or the team's not not supportive, or the admin are not supportive. Yeah.

unknown 9:14

Yeah.

Lesley 9:14

Yeah. And

AAC And Practical MTSS Tools

Lesley 9:15

it's kind of made me feel like, you know, doing my own part. Even though, you know, I wrote this book and I'm so excited about the second edition. The second edition is very exciting because everything is updated. There's new stories, there's new tools, there's new research, but there's also two full new chapters that weren't in the previous book. And one of those chapters is focused on AAC. And there's a lot of really, I think, amazing stories of SLPs that have done some really innovative and creative work in that area around using AAC as a tiered one support, um, building a positive culture related to AAC. So I have a chapter focused on that, and I also have a chapter focused on implementation tools. So taking everything that we've learned and translating it into practice. And some of what's in that chapter are self-reflection tools, more communication tools for communicating with teachers, communicating with parents, and then just a number of really more in-depth case studies of SLPs that have, through their advocacy and determination, really made a huge impact through their work with MTSS. And I feel like one of the tools that we can share with each other is just sharing these stories because it's, you know, part of motivating. Um, but even though I wrote that book, which is a huge huge production, I feel like I still want to be doing my part to kind of think about what's next, what more can we do?

Sabbatical And International Lens

Lesley 10:41

Um and when I think about how individual SLPs have to kind of use their creativity and determination, I think about, you know, what are the assumptions that we have around school-based services? And what are some assumptions that we need to question and that we need to push to think further, which is why I'm really excited that in the fall I'm going to be doing a sabbatical, which is going to be a research-focused sabbatical that looks at school-based speech language services and their enroll, you know, involvement with tiered supports from an international lens.

Sarah 11:17

That's fantastic. Yeah. Because there is an international flavor to this where there's happening all over the over the planet. Yes. Yeah.

Lesley 11:31

And I I kind of find it fascinating, you know. I mean, I came across you in some of my work and other, you know, SLPs in Canada, but I've since also connected with SLPs that are in Europe and I'm going to be traveling to Switzerland in September to meet with some of them. And, you know, what they have told me is, wow, some of the same challenges that you're facing in the US are the same challenges that we're facing. And at first I was a little surprised by that because oftentimes in the US, we may attribute some of our challenges so specifically to federal policy. In the US, we have very structured, specific federal policy related to speech and language service delivery within the, you know, the auspices of special education. And I thought, you know, we always talk about, oh, well, if we change the policy, then that would be the solution. But then I thought, well, some of these challenges are more universal, right? And when I sort of open my eyes to SLPs that are operating in considerably different policy contexts, different cultural context, including multilingual context, they are facing some of the same barriers, some different barriers. So I'm hoping that giving a more broader international lens to my work can help highlight which barriers are sort of structural to the field as a whole, like assumptions about how speech language therapists are meant to operate, regardless of international boundary and which are changeable, which run deeper than policy changes, which could be addressed by, you know, which of these could be addressed by policy changes. Sometimes I think like, what if I were to have a magic wand and I were to say, you know, there's no history, there's no um policy in place. But what policy would we write if we wanted to write something that would be the best to um leverage the expertise of speech language services pathologists in schools? What would we do to create conditions like that? What would we do to motivate conditions like that so that we don't just have to rely on, you know, determined individuals who keep pushing the boundary? I mean, we always want, that's where good ideas always start as creative entrepreneurial thinkers. But how can we kind of start there and then use that to create like a larger conditions for more SLPs to be engaged? So those are some of the questions that I'm gonna be focusing on during my sabbatical in the fall.

Sarah 13:54

That's very exciting. I I have a similar curiosity about that area. Like, what is it that's in why is this universal? Why is it that you speak to people from different countries and they're having the same, the same issues within this profession? What is it about? We're an international profession. You'd think there'd be more variation in the challenges, um, but actually it often feels very familiar. And I call it like, what are the hidden rules? That's my way of describing it. What are the hidden rules of our profession that are making it so hard for us to understand how to work in the education system, how to make those changes? Um, and also to see philosophically, like there are people who have, you know, who are changing their philosophy based on their experiences, but also their determination, their curiosity, their enthusiasm. Um and there are other people who need help, need to see that there's a different way of thinking, that there's a mental sh mental shift that we can make, that's a psychological and philosophical shift. Right. Um, but how do we support that? And if we don't know what the hidden rules are, then you know, and you're you're exploring that in your sabbatical, then we can start using some information that can clarify that so we're not making more mistakes, have unintended consequences of decisions that we make. Yeah. So I'll be really interested to see what you come up, what comes out of this.

Lesley 15:21

Well, I hope that we can continue the conversation during it. And of course, I would love to rejoin your podcast when I've gathered more information to share, to share what I've learned. But, you know, I really feel like this cross-national dialogue, this international lens, you know, I feel strongly that it's going to uncover what might sort of be some of the missing pieces to really having a breakthrough for SLPs to really engage, you know, with sort of without having to like ask permission or feel like they're breaking the rules, you know, in this more prevention-oriented tiered approach. So I'm very excited about what it might yield. And, you know, things about like the history of our profession and how it grew maybe out of a medical model, where how we train our SLPs, how what kind of experiences they have prior to entering the field. Like these are all things that I think are pieces of it. Um, you know, everybody's practice is like a, it's almost like, you know, those the reading rope. You know, I kind of think of like the SLP rope of like your training, the people that you've met, the continuing education that you have, your colleagues, like all of these shape your perspective and the practice that you have. So I'm hoping to kind of disentangle some of those pieces as well. Um, I'm really excited to be able to have the mental time to really dedicate to this, what I think is a very important question. So I'm gonna be taking some trips as part of it, which I'm also excited about.

Sarah 16:58

Yeah, well, you're gonna come to the part of the world I'm currently living in.

Lesley 17:02

So yeah, well, my plan, as I mentioned, I'm gonna be in Switzerland um in early September. And then I am going to be in British Columbia, both in the Vancouver area and in the Vancouver Island area, like Victoria, um, in early November. Very exciting. Yeah. Yeah. So I think I have coincidentally picked two very beautiful areas of the world to be visiting as well. So I'm also looking forward to that. But honestly, these um two locations really grew organically from SLPs that have reached out to me in these different locations. Um, and so I feel like there's a lot of like thinking and pushing boundaries and challenging assumptions. And it kind of feels like there's a different momentum for that in 2026, right now, than when my book first came out, which was in 2020, when, you know, we had a lot on our mind collectively, internationally, about how to help children succeed. But there was a lot more thinking about well, how does teletherapy fit in? You know, how does, you know, how is the pandemic going to change children's development or change the role of SLPs? And so it's exciting to see that progression from the first to the second book. I feel like it's been kind of a momentous six years, um, you know, which is one of the reasons it prompted me to write a second edition. Some people feel like, oh, so much has changed in five years. You had a second edition. And I'm like, yeah, the world does feel kind of different in school-based speech services than it did in 20, 2019.

Sarah 18:33

So

Pushing Boundaries After The Pandemic

Sarah 18:34

Yeah, I get the sense that there is a that we are in this in the thick of a movement, you know, that there's more and more um understanding within the education system, um, that there's a different way of doing things for our students with who need extra supports. And so, and and of course we're part of that. Um, and we have our own challenges to understand that. And sometimes even the systems that are working, the education systems that are using MTSS have not completely understood how the SLPs fit into that themselves. So the SLPs are still exploring that. And and so I do feel we're in we're in the the midst of of some significant change, which might take another, you know, it'll take a few more years, maybe another couple of decades. But you know, there's there's something significant happening right now in our profession. Yeah.

Lesley 19:22

I do too. And you know, after the pandemic, there was a lot of discussion in education in general of like, you know, what did we learn from that time period? Once it's over, are we just going to go back to doing things the exact same way we did before? And I'm not saying there weren't creative and innovative SLPs in 2019, 2018. Many were, but I feel like this kind of idea of like, what can we question? What assumptions can we push? What, you know, boundaries can we push? How can we take a different lens? What if everything was up-ended, like it was in 2020? Then what happened? And I do think it has, I mean, there was just so many remarkable stories and SLPs that really pushed boundaries and really drove change that I was able to capture in this book, which I'm so excited about, people that were able to advocate for additional hires that focused on MTSS, people that, you know, generated programs with their school that focused on short-term articulation, so many new ideas related to technology and how to use technology like AAC technology for all students to support literacy, to support um following directions in a large class. I mean, just things that we, you know, just new creative, exciting ideas. I think that's what makes being an SLP fun, is that there's always something new to think about, right?

Sarah 20:42

And we are by not being stagnant, we keep moving forward. Yeah, we are a very creative profession. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I've often said in my career, what if we could just throw everything up in the air and just let it come down differently? You know, what would that look like if we could actually just start from scratch? I had that thought when you described that as well. It's there's um hey, what what if we really could start from the beginning again? What would that look like? What what what would we value right now in our profession we want to keep? And what would we say, actually that's be that's done? We don't need that anymore. Um, what what would that be?

Lesley 21:20

So yeah, it's and it's very liberating to think of that way. And I feel like so often it can be easy to get trapped in the well, I can't do this because of this, you know, I can't do this because of this. And like, you know, I would want to, but I just simply can't because, you know, this policy, this rule, this like, but it's like, okay, well, what if that weren't there? What would you like? What would be how would you do it? So I mean, I'm feel fortunate that I have this chance to kind of have this time to really think about it. But I feel like every SLP in their own way, no matter what context and constraints they're in, has the opportunity to question some of those assumptions and push boundaries. And, you know, more cases than I have time to, although read my book and them that I have time to get into in the podcast of people that just did exactly that. And for the most part, you know, there was a moment when they weren't sure if it would all work, and then it did. And you know, even if it was a little incremental progress, and they were going to change it again for the next year and make things even better. So that's exciting.

Sarah 22:23

That's very exciting. Oh, thank you very much for sharing all that.

Lesley 22:26

Um of course, it's such a pleasure to speak with you, and I love your podcast. I've been listening to it. So thank you for bringing me back as another guest.

Sarah 22:36

Yeah, I'll definitely have you back.

Lesley 22:39

Well, after I get done with this international trips, I would love to catch up with you and your listeners and tell you some of the things that I learned. Yeah, that'd be absolutely gonna be pushing my own boundaries and traveling the world.

Sarah 22:52

Yeah, I've got to keep doing it. Well, absolutely. Yeah, well, I set up a podcast in my later years. So uh got to keep pushing those boundaries and developing those brain cells. You do, absolutely. Okay, well, thank you very, very much. And um, yeah, we'll we'll we'll see you again when you have got the update.

Lesley 23:11

Okay, sounds fantastic. Well, thank you so much. This is really fun to share.

Takeaways And Share Your Experiments

Sarah 23:16

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 a 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.