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Lesley Sylvan

Chairperson, Communication Sciences and Disorders, College for Community Health

Office:: 1515 Broad Street
Email:: sylvanl@montclair.edu
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Dr. Lesley Sylvan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Montclair State University. She is a certified speech-language pathologist (SLP) with extensive clinical experience working with school-aged children in both public school and private clinical settings. She holds a Master's degree in Educational Policy and Management and a Doctorate in Human Development and Education, both from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Dr. Sylvan's research examines how school-based SLPs are positioned within the systems that structure their daily practice, and how those systems can be reshaped to better serve children with communication needs. She runs the Training, Innovation, Empowerment Related to School-Based Speech-Language Pathologists (TIERS) Laboratory, which tackles complex problems in educational speech-language pathology from multiple vantage points to surface novel issues and identify innovative solutions.

Her program of research comprises three interconnected strands: defining the SLP's role within MTSS, examining contextual factors shaping service delivery in the post-pandemic landscape, and preparing graduate students for community-engaged practice in under-resourced schools. She draws on mixed methods, including national surveys and qualitative interview-based analysis.

Her book, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support: Implementation Tools for Speech-Language Pathologists in Education, now in its second edition, explores how the MTSS framework applies to SLPs' work in schools.
At Montclair State, she teaches courses on language acquisition, language disorders in school-aged children, and research methodology, and mentors Master's-level students in research and publication.

https://www.pluralpublishing.com/publications/multi-tiered-systems-of-support-implementation-tools-for-speech-language-pathologists-in-education-second-edition
https://sites.google.com/montclair.edu/msu-tiers-lab/home
https://leader.pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/leader.FTR1.23082018.44
https://www.instagram.com/msutierslab/
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0426-484X

Specialization

Language disorders in school-aged children, special education policy, roles of the school speech-language pathologist, scholarship of teaching and learning, current practice patterns and personnel preparation needs in the field of speech-language pathology, multiple tiers of student support (MTSS) framework

Office Hours

Fall

Monday: 11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Tuesday: 9:00 am - 10:00 am
Wednesday: 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm

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