Episode 357: Lesley Sylvan: Multi-tiered Systems of Support for Speech-Language Pathologists
Description
In this episode, Chris talks with Dr. Lesley Sylvan, author of the second edition of Multi-Tiered Systems of Support: Implementation Tools for Speech-Language Pathologists in Education. Lesley shares how the book evolved following the pandemic and why the new edition expands its focus on AAC, implementation science, universal screening, collaboration, and practical tools for school-based speech-language pathologists.
Lesley and Chris explore what MTSS really means—and several common misconceptions about it. They discuss why MTSS is not a pre-referral process, why students should not be labeled by tiers, and how SLPs can extend their impact beyond individual services through universal screening, consultation, collaboration, and schoolwide supports. They also examine the growing connection between AAC and MTSS, including how visual and multimodal communication supports can become part of a broader culture of access rather than something reserved only for individual students.
Key Ideas This Week
MTSS Is a Framework, Not a Step Before Special Education
Lesley emphasizes that MTSS is a schoolwide, prevention-oriented framework—not a procedure students complete before they can receive an IEP. It does not have a beginning, middle, and end, and it should not be treated as another name for the pre-referral process. Students with and without IEPs can benefit from supports within an MTSS framework.
SLPs Can Expand Their Impact Beyond the Caseload
Because speech-language pathologists are a limited resource in schools, Lesley encourages SLPs to consider how their expertise can reach more learners. Universal oral-language screening, brief supports for students with speech-sound needs, classroom-based instruction, consultation, collaboration, and educator capacity-building can all create opportunities to address needs earlier and more broadly.
Tier Resources and Supports—Not Students
Chris and Lesley discuss the importance of avoiding labels such as “Tier 1 student” or “Tier 3 student.” MTSS tiers describe the intensity of resources, time, instruction, and supports—not the learner. The same intervention may also function at different tiers depending on who receives it, how intensively it is provided, and the context in which it is implemented.
AAC Belongs in Conversations About MTSS
Lesley explains that AAC was not part of the first edition of her book because she initially thought of it primarily within special education. Conversations with practicing SLPs changed that perspective. The new edition includes an entire chapter examining AAC through an MTSS lens and recognizing that all learners communicate in diverse ways.
Chris suggests reframing AAC as organized visual and auditory language support. Rather than viewing these tools as something reserved for a small number of learners, educators can consider how visual symbols, speech output, core boards, and other multimodal supports may contribute to language instruction and communication access across environments.
Collaboration Is Fundamental to MTSS
SLPs cannot implement MTSS alone. A central part of the framework is collaboration with teachers, administrators, families, and other educators. Lesley describes consultation and professional learning as important opportunities for SLPs to share their expertise so speech, language, literacy, and communication supports become part of the broader school culture.
Moving From Research to Practice Requires Reflection, Communication, and Advocacy
The new edition includes tools designed to help SLPs turn MTSS principles into meaningful action. These include self-reflection tools, a SWOT analysis, communication templates, visuals for stakeholders, goal-setting supports, and real-world examples from SLPs implementing MTSS in a variety of settings. Lesley emphasizes that advocacy and leadership are often necessary to create lasting change.
Looking Globally Can Help Us Rethink School-Based Speech-Language Services
Lesley shares that her next phase of research will examine school-based speech-language services internationally, including work in Switzerland and Canada. Comparing different funding structures, policies, and service-delivery models may help identify which challenges are universal and which are created by particular systems—and may reveal new ways to use limited speech-language resources more effectively.
Links Mentioned in This Episode
ASHAWire Special Collection: Multi-Tiered System of Supports
The New Assistive Tech, Second Edition: Make Learning Awesome for All! by Christopher Bugaj
Transcript of the Episode
Please Note: This transcript was generated using speech recognition & AI tools reviewed by a human; it may contain some grammatical and/or spelling errors.
00:00:10 Chris
Welcome to the Talking With Tech podcast.
00:00:11 Chris
My name is Chris Bougay, and today I am with Leslie Silvan.
00:00:15 Chris
Leslie, am I saying your name right?
00:00:17 Lesley
You got my name right.
00:00:18 Lesley
Thank you so much for having me.
00:00:19 Chris
Leslie, it's great to have you here.
00:00:22 Chris
One of the reasons you're on the Talking With Tech podcast is to tell us about your new book, the second edition of your book.
00:00:28 Chris
So give us the whole story about the first edition and what it's about, and then how it evolved into the second edition, and then why it's relevant to the.
00:00:38 Lesley
Amazing.
00:00:39 Lesley
Well, thank you for getting started on my very favorite topic to talk about.
00:00:43 Lesley
So my second edition of my book did just come out, which I'm really excited about.
00:00:48 Lesley
The book is titled, I always have to look at the title.
00:00:50 Lesley
It's a long title, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support: Implementation Tools for Speech-Language Pathologists in Education.
00:00:56 Lesley
So I wrote the first edition of this book.
00:00:59 Lesley
I did most of the writing in 2019 and early 2020, and then it came out right around August 2020.
00:01:06 Lesley
So we have
00:01:07 Lesley
remember that was kind of a crazy time.
00:01:10 Lesley
And I was happy that I'd done a lot of the research for the book right before the pandemic started.
00:01:14 Lesley
But as soon as it came out, I started thinking about the second edition because it felt like the pandemic was one of the biggest game changers that we've ever seen, were the largest disruptors that we've seen in educational history.
00:01:26 Lesley
And so the book still, I felt like was really relevant.
00:01:30 Lesley
Fortunately, in a couple years, children went back to school, there was a lot more discussion about MTSS
00:01:37 Lesley
But then a lot of things had changed too in terms of, you know, recognition of the value of a speech language pathologist in public schools, their comfort with using different kinds of tools, digital tools, virtual spaces, teletherapy, right?
00:01:50 Lesley
A lot kind of was a time of rapid change right around 2020, 2021, 2022.
00:01:56 Lesley
So I had been thinking right from the start about what would be sort of the second edition.
00:02:02 Lesley
But then about five years later, I reconnected with Plural, who's the publisher of this book, and said,
00:02:07 Lesley
I think that this is the right time to write a new edition of the book.
00:02:12 Lesley
Some of the things stayed the same.
00:02:13 Lesley
A really major part of the book is what I call the MTSS toolkit that is aligned with the Common Core State Standards.
00:02:20 Lesley
So the first chapter is background about MTSS, how it's different from RTI, how it relates to universal design for learning, what it says in federal policy, just a lot of the basics around that.
00:02:31 Lesley
The second chapter is around data and decision making generally, what kind of decisions do SLPs need to make?
00:02:37 Lesley
in a tiered framework, what are some of the assessment tools, pros and cons of different tools.
00:02:41 Lesley
And then the following chapters align with the English language arts standards of the Common Core State Standards.
00:02:46 Lesley
So speaking and listening, reading, writing, language.
00:02:51 Lesley
And then I have a chapter that is focused on speech sound disorders like articulation, voice, and fluency.
00:02:58 Lesley
But new for this new edition is there is a chapter on AAC, which I think is very relevant to this podcast.
00:03:05 Lesley
I'm looking forward to delving into
00:03:07 Lesley
that more and that was one of the areas that I think not only was technology changing a lot, but our thinking and the way that we think about technology and related to education and thinking about neurodiversity and different forms of communication.
00:03:20 Lesley
It was a rapidly sort of evolving time between the first edition and the second edition.
00:03:24 Lesley
And then the other chapter that is new for this edition is about focuses on implementation science and it's about tools for really translating theory into practice.
00:03:34 Lesley
So it has a lot of communication tools
00:03:37 Lesley
self-reflection tools, goal writing tools, and then some more in detail case studies of SLTs that really have done incredible things around MTSS and how they did it and their advocacy and their leadership in that area.
00:03:51 Lesley
So throughout the book is all updated, but that chapter on AAC and sort of translating theory into action are the sort of highlight chapters that are new for the second edition.
00:04:01 Chris
Leslie, so much of that resonates with me.
00:04:03 Chris
But before we get to that, before I reflect on what you just said there, tell people a little bit about your background, like who you are and what you do.
00:04:10 Lesley
Yeah, that's important too.
00:04:13 Lesley
So I am a associate professor at Montclair State University.
00:04:17 Lesley
That is a state university in the state of New Jersey.
00:04:20 Lesley
Before working in academics, I was a school speech language pathologist.
00:04:25 Lesley
I worked on both coasts.
00:04:27 Lesley
I worked in New York City schools and I worked in San Francisco schools.
00:04:30 Lesley
I had a couple of years where I had a small private practice as well, but I have been in academia since 2017, and the focus of my research has always been the role of speech language pathologist in school.
00:04:43 Lesley
So policies, frameworks, really thinking about ways that we can empower and support SLPs to make the greatest impact and leverage their unique skills in school settings.
00:04:54 Chris
Amazing, amazing.
00:04:55 Chris
Well, okay, so let me reflect on some of the things you said.
00:04:59 Chris
Well, first, Montclair, you know, my daughter, I told you this when we were chatting back and forth.
00:05:04 Chris
My daughter, it was on my daughter's list to go there.
00:05:06 Chris
She just graduated from high school.
00:05:07 Chris
Salem State beat it out.
00:05:09 Chris
So Montclair was in the top five.
00:05:12 Chris
Sorry you didn't get to, didn't get her there.
00:05:15 Chris
Maybe graduate studies, who knows?
00:05:16 Chris
We'll see.
00:05:16 Lesley
It's a great school.
00:05:18 Lesley
We're always welcome.
00:05:22 Chris
Your comments about the pandemic,
00:05:24 Chris
And the first edition transforming into the second edition really resonates with me because I had similar situation where I had written a book called The New Assistive Tech, Make Learning Awesome for All.
00:05:36 Chris
And that was pre-pandemic.
00:05:37 Chris
And then the pandemic happened.
00:05:38 Chris
I was like, well, so much happened.
00:05:40 Chris
And so just like you,
00:05:42 Chris
engaged in writing the second edition.
00:05:45 Chris
And then the other big change that I think happened is the advent of generative AI.
00:05:49 Chris
I don't know how much I'll be curious to dig into if that shows up in that new final chapter about practice at all, because that also seems to be the big game changer or potential game changer in the world of education.
00:06:05 Chris
We'll see.
00:06:05 Chris
We'll yet to see if it actually is a game changer.
00:06:09 Chris
So let me ask you this.
00:06:11 Chris
What got you interested in MTSS and speech language pathology and sort of the Venn diagram of those two things and how they overlap in the first place?
00:06:21 Lesley
That's a great question.
00:06:23 Lesley
So I mentioned that I have a background as a speech language pathologist, but I also didn't mention that my doctorate degree is in human development and education.
00:06:32 Lesley
So I have always sort of been very interested in school systems.
00:06:38 Lesley
I concentrated in educational policy for my doctorate degree.
00:06:42 Lesley
And I always was looking at educational policy and education systems in general with the idea of how do speech language pathologists sort of fit within the system and how do we leverage their unique expertise and this sort of unique limited resource, right?
00:06:57 Lesley
I mean, no matter how we always want more speech language pathologists, but no matter how many we have, it's never enough, right?
00:07:03 Lesley
It's always going to be a limited resource in public schools compared to the number of, say, teachers that we have, right?
00:07:09 Lesley
It's just definitionally.
00:07:10 Lesley
And so it's always going
00:07:11 Lesley
to be a limited resource and how do we leverage that?
00:07:15 Lesley
A lot of times federal policy, state policy, even district policies don't think as much about the role of sort of specialists in public schools.
00:07:24 Lesley
Understandably, there's a lot of focus on teachers and what happens in the classroom and general education teachers, right, where that's the vast majority of professionals that are working in schools.
00:07:34 Lesley
So I've always been interested in policies and frameworks and education with an interest in how specialists sort of fit in.
00:07:42 Lesley
And so MTSS to me seemed like the perfect entry point for all of my interests because it is a general education framework that applies to the general, you know, the entire school and all the professionals working in it.
00:07:54 Lesley
And I feel like there was a lot of discourse around it, a lot of momentum.
00:07:57 Lesley
It's emphasized in federal policy.
00:07:59 Lesley
Almost every state has a specific MTSS tiered framework that's specific for their state.
00:08:04 Lesley
But there was
00:08:07 Lesley
less clarity on the role of specialists within that system.
00:08:11 Lesley
And there had been a lot of policy statements from ASHA and other sources saying like, SLPs do have a role.
00:08:18 Lesley
There is a role here.
00:08:19 Lesley
But through my conversations, and I've always been constantly talking with practitioners, I feel like that's sort of a hallmark of my work is it's like the voices and experiences of talking to people in the field and what challenges they face, what innovative solutions they have.
00:08:33 Lesley
And I heard from a lot of them like, well, I love the idea of MTS.
00:08:37 Lesley
SLPs want to help more people.
00:08:40 Lesley
They want to be involved in education.
00:08:41 Lesley
They want to make a difference for the communities that they're serving and not just narrowly thinking about their caseload, but thinking about how to implement that and put that into practice.
00:08:51 Lesley
There were so many, as many questions as answers in what I was thinking.
00:08:55 Lesley
And so I felt like that would be a really useful area to delve into more.
00:09:02 Lesley
My first foray into this was writing an article for the ASHA Leader, that was called
00:09:07 Lesley
It's a pretty brief article that talked about, you know, here's what MTSS is, here's how it's relevant for SLPs, here's some of the roles that SLPs could take in that.
00:09:17 Lesley
Very positive reception to that ASHA leader article.
00:09:20 Lesley
A lot of follow up, a lot of questions, a lot of interest.
00:09:24 Lesley
And that is when I kind of connected with Plural Publishing, who publishes a lot of the, you know, I think highly reputable textbooks in this area, although of course not the only one.
00:09:34 Lesley
And they were looking to create
00:09:37 Lesley
a more in-depth resource on this topic, connected with me to see if I would be interested.
00:09:42 Lesley
And having sort of launched off from that SL Leader article, I had already started to connect with SLPs in the field, got a lot of emails about their questions around it.
00:09:50 Lesley
And so it seemed like a natural point to kind of extend it into a book.
00:09:54 Lesley
Since the first book was published, I have really stayed on topic and done a lot of more research based studies on the role of SLPs related to MTSS.
00:10:05 Lesley
So I followed a school district
00:10:07 Lesley
an entire year.
00:10:09 Lesley
That was all the school team was dedicated to wanting to get more involved with Mtss.
00:10:14 Lesley
And so I met with them at the beginning of the school year.
00:10:17 Lesley
Regular interval goals in terms of focus groups, in terms of surveys and in terms of individual interviews over the course of the whole year.
00:10:24 Lesley
really looking closely at how they balanced responsibilities.
00:10:28 Lesley
That is like the number one question is like, how do we do it all right?
00:10:31 Lesley
We have lots of kids with identified needs.
00:10:33 Lesley
Ips are here.
00:10:35 Lesley
They're not going away.
00:10:36 Lesley
How do we
00:10:38 Lesley
balance the responsibilities with Mtss and other responsibilities that school based Slps have.
00:10:43 Lesley
So that was a real in-depth study about the balancing act.
00:10:46 Lesley
That was the title of it.
00:10:48 Lesley
I also looked a similar design over the course of a whole school year with a teletherapy based team was a team of all
00:10:56 Lesley
SLPs that worked virtually that also wanted to get more engaged with MTSS and how they evolved over the course of a year.
00:11:03 Lesley
I've also done some focus group studies around misconceptions that SLPs may have related to MTSS and identifying them.
00:11:10 Lesley
And then most recently, I have been working on developing a 5 point
00:11:15 Lesley
scale that was validated through a national survey of how SLPs are sort of involved with MTSS in a stage framework.
00:11:23 Lesley
So a lot of SLPs may say, well, I'm not sure if I do MTSS, right?
00:11:26 Lesley
Like, do I do it?
00:11:27 Lesley
Yes or no?
00:11:28 Lesley
And kind of trying to get away from the binary of like, yes, I do it.
00:11:31 Lesley
No, I don't do it and thinking that there could be varying stages of which you're engaged with the framework.
00:11:35 Lesley
So I have found it to be an endlessly fascinating, generous topic for me to explore and learn more about.
00:11:42 Lesley
And some of the empirical studies that I've done
00:11:45 Lesley
are highlighted in this book, in addition to the many people, yourself included, that I connected with while researching for this book that highlight you sort of real world experiences.
00:11:57 Chris
Amazing.
00:11:58 Chris
So let's talk about this.
00:11:59 Chris
So I'm imagining someone listening to this right now going, well, I don't even know.
00:12:03 Chris
I'm either a new speech therapist or I'm new to the concepts of a multi-tier system of support.
00:12:09 Chris
And maybe this is what that last chapter is about, is connecting a sort of theory to practice.
00:12:13 Chris
What are some stories or examples or some of the things that have worked or the myths that have come up?
00:12:20 Chris
What are some of the stories around it?
00:12:23 Lesley
Oh, there are so many stories.
00:12:25 Lesley
I'm thinking about where to even start.
00:12:28 Lesley
I feel like the last chapter of the book is really focused on people that have taken MTSS to the next level, sort of like inspiring motivational stories.
00:12:40 Lesley
But maybe I want to start with, for that question, sort of maybe what I would saw like an entry point into MTSS.
00:12:47 Lesley
So one entry point that I think that a lot of SLPs can probably resonate with is the idea
00:12:53 Lesley
idea of universal screening.
00:12:54 Lesley
That's actually another article that I forgot to mention that I wrote in between the first and second edition was a tutorial really focused on the importance of SLPs being engaged with universal screening.
00:13:05 Lesley
So we know that it is hard to identify when children are coming into kindergarten who might benefit from some immediate speech and language support to kind of make sure that kids are on the right track, right?
00:13:18 Lesley
Oftentimes we maybe don't
00:13:20 Lesley
don't come to our attention as speech language pathologist till they're in third or fourth grade.
00:13:24 Lesley
And we think, wow, we really would have been helpful.
00:13:27 Lesley
We could have, you know, done some earlier intervention early.
00:13:30 Lesley
I don't mean zero to three.
00:13:31 Lesley
I mean like at the beginning of elementary school.
00:13:34 Lesley
So universal screening is a very important tool for identifying children that might be at risk of challenges related to speech and language and a mechanism for identifying those kids and maybe getting them some support.
00:13:46 Lesley
I'm thinking about support outside of special education to make sure
00:13:50 Lesley
that they are on the right track.
00:13:52 Lesley
So universal screening is actually a very common practice in public schools.
00:13:56 Lesley
Oftentimes it's related to literacy and decoding, hearing and vision, but oftentimes oral language is left out of that universal screening process, even though we know that oral language is so foundational and so important for academic success.
00:14:11 Lesley
So there are a lot of ways to try to get involved with that, and a lot of SLPs are very interested in doing so and have been engaged with universal screening.
00:14:19 Lesley
So if there's
00:14:20 Lesley
universal screening happening in your district, that is sort of like a foundational element of MTSS is thinking about being involved with that tier one level, tier one level being all the students, all students participate in a universal screening.
00:14:34 Lesley
And then we identify children that maybe we don't have concerns about, children that we have, you know, that might be considered at risk that we want to do some interventions or support within the classroom, and then other children who we might want to do further testing.
00:14:46 Lesley
So that's kind of an entry point for thinking about MTSS
00:14:51 Lesley
Another entry point is thinking about students that may have single sound errors that could be remediated in a relatively shorter time period that we often have a difficult time identifying and putting on caseloads because we might say we don't see an academic impact or the significance of this disability is not enough to warn an IEP.
00:15:12 Lesley
But we know that as SLPs, we could really help them, right?
00:15:15 Lesley
And we know that even a single speech sound error is important for a child's life for their social
00:15:20 Lesley
emotional development, for their academic development, all of those things.
00:15:24 Lesley
So San Diego was sort of a pioneering district in this way when they started the speech improvement class.
00:15:30 Lesley
But since then, I've talked to a lot of SLPs that have small groups that work on single sound articulation errors for six to eight weeks with children, many of whom they see have success remediating some of those errors exit that sort of program and never end up getting out an IEP and end up getting the help that they need.
00:15:49 Lesley
So helping those kids with single
00:15:51 Lesley
speech sound errors is another entry point.
00:15:54 Lesley
Those are two of them that I feel like are kind of common starting points.
00:15:57 Chris
These are great examples and they make a lot of sense.
00:16:00 Chris
And like you said, because it's such speech language pathologists are in such great demand and they're always going to be a limited resource, especially in comparison to, like you said,
00:16:10 Chris
teachers.
00:16:11 Chris
In fact, sometimes we really fight to use the word educator as opposed to teacher.
00:16:17 Chris
Lots of times we hear in conversations, I mean, it's like, well, we need the teachers to do this.
00:16:21 Chris
We're asking the teachers to do that.
00:16:22 Chris
I was like, well, actually, don't we want everyone doing this?
00:16:25 Chris
So it's just that language around it.
00:16:27 Chris
But back to speech, those are two great examples that I think a lot of people could relate to because, oh, okay, I get it now.
00:16:34 Chris
This is how we provide services to a wider swath of students and still have an impact
00:16:40 Chris
without necessarily it targeting each individual student, which might be more of a tier three sort of situation.
00:16:49 Chris
Is that fair?
00:16:50 Lesley
Absolutely.
00:16:51 Lesley
That's fair.
00:16:52 Lesley
So it's kind of thinking about how can we have an impact on the whole
00:16:56 Lesley
student population without, of course, we're never going to be able to work with every single student individually.
00:17:02 Lesley
But you know, I'm glad you brought up teachers and other educators.
00:17:04 Lesley
I mean, a fundamental part of MTSS and SLP's role in it is collaboration, right?
00:17:09 Lesley
We cannot do MTSS alone.
00:17:11 Lesley
It's like a antithesis, right?
00:17:14 Lesley
It's like, and so building those partnerships and empowering and kind of the whole school community to think about speech and language is everyone's area, right?
00:17:23 Lesley
It's our area of expertise, but it's everyone's area because
00:17:26 Lesley
so interconnected to academic success.
00:17:29 Lesley
And so letting all the educators and teachers know, here's some approaches, here's some techniques.
00:17:35 Lesley
That's another sort of common entry point is more consultation, more professional development for educators so that they can also be supporting speech and language needs.
00:17:45 Chris
Fun fact, the very first, I think maybe the very first professional article I ever wrote was for ASHA and it was called The Case for Consultation, which was probably 20 years ago, but this idea exactly, which is I was working as a speech therapist in school thinking, man, my time is so, there's so many needs not being met because my time is being
00:18:06 Chris
isolated into these little pockets, what if I could change my time from being so much direct service to more working with the educators on a consult or collaboration basis to build up their skills, which it seems like that is still in line with what we're talking about here is buying a more efficient way to think about things.
00:18:28 Lesley
Absolutely.
00:18:28 Lesley
That is fundamental to MTSS.
00:18:32 Chris
Let me ask you, you gave some great examples of
00:18:35 Chris
of like entry points.
00:18:36 Chris
You mentioned those myths.
00:18:38 Chris
What are some of the myths that you'd hope to squash?
00:18:40 Chris
Like, man, I just wish we could kill this idea because this is not it.
00:18:43 Chris
This is the misconception people have.
00:18:46 Lesley
So I think that an entry misconception is that MTSS is a process that has a starting point and an ending point.
00:18:55 Lesley
So I think that oftentimes we think about, you know, like the assessment process or even IEPs, right?
00:19:02 Lesley
First you have the initial IEP and then you
00:19:05 Lesley
some progress that's done and then you have the triennial and then eventually you dismiss and then like that's like done, right?
00:19:10 Lesley
Like you've got a beginning, middle and end.
00:19:12 Lesley
Whereas MTSS is like a system wide approach.
00:19:16 Lesley
It's not an approach that has a step one and then an end point, either for the role of SLPs or for an individual child.
00:19:25 Lesley
So sometimes you'll hear somebody say, well, in our school, you know, there's a rule you have to do MTSS before you can get an IEP.
00:19:32 Lesley
And I always kind of like cringe
00:19:35 Lesley
when I hear that because it's not like MTSS is a system wide approach that involves all students.
00:19:40 Lesley
It's not something that you like do or try and then be like, oh, well, MTSS didn't work.
00:19:46 Lesley
I guess I'll have an IEP.
00:19:47 Lesley
And so it is like a proactive preventative oriented framework and it doesn't have a series of beginning, middle and end, especially in relation to an individual child.
00:20:00 Lesley
So that is one myth.
00:20:03 Lesley
related myth, which I feel like, you know, it's kind of similar but a little different, is that MTSS is the same as the pre-referral process.
00:20:11 Lesley
So for a long time in our field, we've talked about like the pre-referral time, right?
00:20:16 Lesley
Starting off with there's a concern, somebody has a concern about a child and then kind of ending with either developing an IEP or not developing an IEP.
00:20:24 Lesley
And so there is always going to be that time frame, right?
00:20:27 Lesley
Like there's going to be some time between there's a concern and an IEP.
00:20:31 Lesley
But that is not like, that's not like
00:20:33 Lesley
is time.
00:20:34 Lesley
MTSS is not a synonym to the pre referral process.
00:20:40 Lesley
I think another potential myth, although I think this one is a little bit less prevalent, is that like MTSS is illegal in some places.
00:20:47 Lesley
Some people will say, well, like, oh, in my state, you know, we have policies or we have rules that we're not allowed to do MTSS.
00:20:54 Lesley
Now, you may not be allowed to do certain things, but MTSS is a framework.
00:20:58 Lesley
It's not a legal or not legal, it's not a procedure.
00:21:05 Lesley
So those are three examples.
00:21:08 Lesley
The other one that I think I have so many, I have examples of all of these is that speech and language is not part of MTSS, but it's only for reading and behavior.
00:21:18 Lesley
So there is a really strong history of tiered approaches to behavior management, which I think, you know, talking about positive behavior support, you know, reading, there's a lot of
00:21:30 Lesley
research on the tiered approach to reading.
00:21:32 Lesley
And absolutely MTSS belongs to those areas too, but that doesn't exclude it from being relevant to speech and language support.
00:21:39 Lesley
So, you know, sometimes I talk about academics, speech and language, behavior, all of the areas because it's a framework, right?
00:21:45 Lesley
It's a framework.
00:21:46 Lesley
It doesn't have a start and an end point.
00:21:48 Lesley
It's a inclusive framework.
00:21:51 Chris
Leslie, I'll give you one more that sort of
00:21:53 Chris
always makes me cringe a little bit when I hear it, and that is we tier students, not resources.
00:21:59 Chris
Like this is a tier one student or a tier two student.
00:22:02 Chris
No, we don't tier students, we tier resources.
00:22:04 Chris
Resources get tiered, our time gets tiered, or how we spend our
00:22:09 Chris
how we spend our time or our resources.
00:22:11 Chris
But when I hear professionals say they're like, okay, so are you a tier three administrator or a tier one administrator?
00:22:18 Chris
You would hate to be tiered and placed in something like that.
00:22:20 Chris
So let's not do that to the kids.
00:22:21 Chris
Is that fair?
00:22:23 Lesley
That is totally fair.
00:22:24 Lesley
And I would say the same thing about interventions.
00:22:27 Lesley
Some people might be like, oh, this is an intervention that I bought.
00:22:30 Lesley
This is for tier one.
00:22:31 Lesley
And I'm like, interventions depending on
00:22:35 Lesley
what age you're using them with, what students, right?
00:22:38 Lesley
Like they could be potentially applicable, something like teaching story grammar, right?
00:22:42 Lesley
Like you could teach it as a tier one approach or as a tier three or somewhere in the middle or on an IEP.
00:22:48 Lesley
So neither students nor interventions.
00:22:50 Lesley
It's more thinking about like resources and time.
00:22:54 Lesley
And it's a framework, you know, it's a framework.
00:22:57 Lesley
I think that it can be hard to wrap your mind around that because we kind of have a push sometimes in special education of wanting things to be very rigid and rule based and MTSS just doesn't fit in neatly in that.
00:23:11 Chris
100%.
00:23:11 Chris
Now, what, too, that I have not heard enough of the talk about is tiering your technology resources.
00:23:19 Chris
So what technology do we provide to all students versus what technology do we provide only to groups or individual students?
00:23:27 Chris
Which brings us over to the connection with speech language pathology, AAC, and MTSS.
00:23:34 Chris
So let's talk a little bit about that.
00:23:36 Chris
So what was your inroads to that and how did that chapter take?
00:23:41 Lesley
Well, thank you for asking that.
00:23:43 Lesley
And writing that chapter was one of the, I thought the most exciting and best parts of the second edition of this book because I learned so much and connected with so many great people in the process of it.
00:23:53 Lesley
But in the first edition of my book, I have to be honest, it didn't even cross my mind that AAC would be a chapter in a book about MTSS.
00:24:01 Lesley
To me, I had been, I now feel like wrongfully thinking that sort of lived more the world of special education specifically.
00:24:11 Lesley
But as I was connecting with more people and having conversations about how are you involved with tiered support, I started to hear more and more people talking about AAC and I thought, wow, this is fascinating and so interesting.
00:24:24 Lesley
And I learned so much from talking to people about it and learning more in this area.
00:24:30 Lesley
And I think that there is just a much greater awareness even in the past five years that technology is an important piece of thinking about how we communicate.
00:24:40 Lesley
all people, how all people communicate and how we support children learning in schools.
00:24:45 Lesley
And so it was really a lot of my research ideas I feel like come from grassroots talking to practitioners.
00:24:50 Lesley
I'm always talking to people.
00:24:51 Lesley
What are you doing in your school?
00:24:52 Lesley
What's new?
00:24:53 Lesley
What are you trying?
00:24:54 Lesley
And that's how AAC and MTSS got into my radar.
00:24:58 Lesley
But once I sort of opened the doors to that, I found so many great examples and I was so excited to have it in the new book.
00:25:07 Lesley
And I think the idea that recognizing
00:25:11 Lesley
anticipating and knowing that children are going to communicate in diverse ways, all children is sort of central to MTSS and is also central to how technology is used.
00:25:22 Lesley
Technology provides a lot of options
00:25:25 Lesley
for communicating.
00:25:26 Lesley
And I do think the pandemic wasn't the only factor, but it kind of brought down some of those barriers in terms of thinking about technology as something completely specialized and something that we were all suddenly behind screens, right?
00:25:37 Lesley
We were all communicating via technology in one way or another, whether it was AAC or, you know, just straight Zoom.
00:25:44 Chris
Yeah, you know, when I talk about MTSS and AAC, one of the things and using it as a tool, maybe just to educate anybody, like teach anybody language, is that when you break down that term AAC and just say, what if we didn't use that term AAC and we just said, what do you use to teach language?
00:26:02 Chris
We'd be like, well, we use visuals.
00:26:05 Chris
Okay, so we need some visuals and we use some like audio, like people generally, unless you're deaf and hard of hearing, you're using some sort of sounds.
00:26:14 Chris
to learn language.
00:26:15 Chris
Okay, so we need audio supports, visual supports, and language is a set of rules, so some structures around it.
00:26:21 Chris
So organize it in a fashion.
00:26:23 Chris
So what we're looking for is something that's got audio, visual, and an organized fashion.
00:26:28 Chris
Now what is that?
00:26:29 Chris
Oh, what about this device that when you push buttons, or there's a bunch of words laid out in a grid so they're organized, and they have visuals that go along with them, and when you push them, they say sounds, oh,
00:26:44 Chris
Instead of calling it AAC, what if we just said it was an audio visual support in organized fashion?
00:26:49 Chris
Would that help convey the message that this could be a teaching tool that is used for the masses as opposed to, again, where it has traditionally lived, which has been only for individual students?
00:27:01 Lesley
Right.
00:27:02 Lesley
I love that way of thinking about it.
00:27:03 Lesley
And you're right.
00:27:03 Lesley
I mean, there's been so much discussion for decades about, you know, using multimodalities in terms of supporting language and literacy development and, you know, a structured visual support with consistent symbols, you know, like it fits right into that.
00:27:20 Lesley
So once my eyes were kind of open to that, I started seeing it everywhere.
00:27:24 Lesley
It's one of those things where it's like you don't see it and then suddenly you see it
00:27:29 Lesley
everywhere.
00:27:30 Lesley
And, you know, thinking about how we all communicate, right?
00:27:33 Lesley
Texting used to be, I mean, I remember having my first cell phone.
00:27:37 Lesley
It was very difficult to text.
00:27:39 Lesley
You know, you were trying to had to turn on, you'd press the six three times to get a certain number.
00:27:43 Lesley
But now texting, I feel like oftentimes I tell my teenager, like, why did you call someone?
00:27:48 Lesley
She's like, no one calls anybody anymore.
00:27:49 Lesley
Mom, like everybody texts, right?
00:27:52 Lesley
And so that used to be a specialized support.
00:27:55 Lesley
Thinking about speech to text, I feel like constantly everyone's
00:27:59 Lesley
car, their Alexa, right?
00:28:00 Lesley
It's like talking to them, speech to tech, that's more specialized support.
00:28:04 Lesley
You know, you start to see it everywhere.
00:28:06 Lesley
And then I just started to hear people talk about in schools.
00:28:09 Lesley
A lot of times you just take walks around, you see playgrounds, universal core boards, children are just innately curious about them.
00:28:17 Lesley
They're playing with them, they're pointing to them, they're playing games.
00:28:20 Lesley
And so once my eyes were open to it, I started seeing it everywhere.
00:28:24 Lesley
And once I started talking to SLPs, I started hearing so many really, and I
00:28:28 Lesley
thought that this was an area where there's still a lot of creativity and energy and interest was related to Aac and Mtss.
00:28:36 Lesley
So I had the best time writing that chapter.
00:28:40 Chris
Just 2 quick comments.
00:28:41 Chris
When you talk about texting, beyond just how, one other aspect that I think has evolved with texting is the use of emojis, which again is adding those visuals and animated GIFs.
00:28:50 Chris
You know, how much messaging is, how much communication happens through the sending of a GIF, you know?
00:28:58 Chris
And then the second comment I want to make about that is,
00:29:01 Chris
We saw this thing on Instagram, my wife and I shared it with our son who is in college at this point.
00:29:08 Chris
And it was too scared to make a phone call, but brave enough to get a tattoo.
00:29:15 Chris
Yeah, that's right.
00:29:17 Lesley
I love that.
00:29:18 Lesley
I know, calling someone on the phone now is a little scary, right?
00:29:21 Lesley
Like, why wouldn't you just text?
00:29:25 Chris
So this has evolved.
00:29:27 Chris
And then, like you said, the last chapter of the book is about this.
00:29:32 Chris
And I think this is so wise for you to add this into the book, because we see this all the time, that there's this sort of theoretical or research-based principles or ideas.
00:29:43 Chris
And then there's the boots on the ground, practical, how we're implementing things.
00:29:47 Chris
And that gap is often this giant chasm that is hard to cross.
00:29:51 Chris
And so the idea that you're summarizing your book with practical
00:29:54 Chris
Let's talk about people that are our boots on the ground and how it actually does tie to the research and the theory behind the practice and how that all meshes together makes a lot of sense to me.
00:30:04 Chris
So let's talk about that last chapter.
00:30:06 Chris
What are some of the things in that last chapter?
00:30:08 Lesley
Yeah, I'd love to talk about it.
00:30:10 Lesley
And I also wanted to mention that throughout the entire book, I feel like these ideas of examples of people in practice.
00:30:16 Lesley
So every single chapter has, I call them real-world snapshots, people that are involved in it.
00:30:20 Lesley
There's actually 43 real-world snapshots, which is quite a few.
00:30:25 Lesley
And that means behind every real-world snapshot is a real person that I met with, talked with.
00:30:29 Lesley
Some of those 43 are teams of people too, so it's even more.
00:30:32 Lesley
But in the last chapter, all my chapters are divided into different tools.
00:30:38 Lesley
There are some self-assessment and reflection tools like things about thinking about where am I and where could I be going with MTSS?
00:30:46 Lesley
And one thing that I feel like I often hear is kind of a barrier is people are just like, I just don't think I'm doing this right, says every single SLP, right?
00:30:54 Lesley
Like I'm not sure if this is really MTSS or not or just something that I'm kind of doing on my own.
00:31:00 Lesley
I'm not sure if we sort of reached the definition of it.
00:31:02 Lesley
So kind of trying to get people away from like a binary thinking and thinking about what are the strengths and weaknesses or what are
00:31:08 Lesley
that I have already done more work and there's areas for growth.
00:31:11 Lesley
So I talk about some unique self reflection tools that I developed for this book, but I also talk about some things people are really familiar with, like the SWOT analysis, right?
00:31:21 Lesley
Like strengths and weaknesses and opportunities and threats to working with, you know, engaging with MTSS as an SLP.
00:31:29 Lesley
So there are some examples of self reflection tools and people using self reflection tools.
00:31:35 Lesley
And then the next element of this book is communication aids.
00:31:38 Lesley
Convey and clarify SLP's roles to stakeholders.
00:31:41 Lesley
So as much as it's difficult for us to understand, even as a profession, what MTSS is, and I already talked about some of those myths, it can be really challenging to convey to principals, administrators, parents, other educators, like why are you as an SLP involved with MTSS, right?
00:31:59 Lesley
Like I thought that you worked with kids in your own room, right?
00:32:03 Lesley
Like why are we having these conversations?
00:32:05 Lesley
So things that are like examples of
00:32:08 Lesley
letters, examples of communication tools, examples of visuals that can be shared with other educators.
00:32:16 Lesley
And some of the examples in that chapter which I like the most are some ideas I had from people I talked to in the field that developed like specialized, sorry, bird just flew by my window, specialized bulletin boards that they put up in their hall, either
00:32:33 Lesley
related to what is a speech language pathologist or speech and language skills generally like games that kids could play from looking at a bulletin board that would encourage speech and language skills.
00:32:43 Lesley
But it kind of had a dual benefit of both educating people about how speech and language is everywhere and how everyone could support it and why SLPs are involved with educating, you know, the whole school community and thinking about it.
00:32:56 Lesley
So those are some of the tools that are in there.
00:32:59 Lesley
I have some infographics around myths that are also included in that part of the chapter.
00:33:06 Lesley
And then the last part of that chapter is, you know, I called them inspirational and motivational stories of SLPs involved with MTSS around advocacy and leadership.
00:33:17 Lesley
So, you know, we can't sugarcoat that sometimes engagement with MTSS as an SLP is hard, right?
00:33:22 Lesley
There has to be advocacy and leadership related to that.
00:33:27 Lesley
It isn't like every principal knows, you know, that this is what an SLP is going to be engaged with.
00:33:32 Lesley
And so there were some really amazing stories that I
00:33:36 Lesley
of people that really engaged in meaningful advocacy really were able to impact change within their school.
00:33:43 Lesley
And I feel like analyzing their stories, of course, everybody in this book got to review their stories, et cetera, and kind of thinking about common themes between them is sort of an important tool too, to think about how can we all become sort of like inspired and motivated and not like we're doing it alone.
00:34:01 Lesley
A lot of SLPs are maybe the only one in their school or sometimes the only one in their
00:34:06 Lesley
district or one of just a very few.
00:34:08 Lesley
So seeing what other people did in diverse settings, I feel like can be very motivational and impactful and thinking about how can I be an advocate and how can I be a leader when I recognize that this is an important value?
00:34:23 Lesley
And those stories I chose in a very sort of deliberately diverse way.
00:34:27 Lesley
Some of them are for some charter schools.
00:34:29 Lesley
One of them features an SLP that focuses just on MTSS in a virtual school that focuses on
00:34:36 Lesley
homeschooled students specifically and how she engages with thinking about tiered supports.
00:34:42 Lesley
So really kind of thinking outside of the box, right?
00:34:44 Lesley
Like even if you're not an SLP that is in a general elementary, you know, elementary school, general education elementary school, there are lots of ways to be involved with MTSS depending on what setting, age group, type of school that you might be working at.
00:35:00 Chris
Awesome.
00:35:01 Chris
Awesome.
00:35:01 Chris
All right, Leslie, here's the big,
00:35:04 Chris
And I can say final question because I have a question after this, but maybe two.
00:35:08 Chris
But here's the big one.
00:35:09 Chris
And that is, all right, I've just listened to this interview or I've seen it pop up on my Instagram a couple of times or social media.
00:35:17 Chris
I'm about to buy this book.
00:35:19 Chris
Once I buy the book and I read through it, what would I hope changes for me?
00:35:25 Chris
Now I've decided I'm going to engage in this MTSS work.
00:35:28 Chris
I'm going to reflect using those tools that you just talked about.
00:35:32 Chris
what, what's the benefit for me and my practice and the people I serve?
00:35:38 Lesley
How many benefits?
00:35:39 Lesley
I mean, I think that number one, it's a way to improve our practice and amplify our impact in school.
00:35:46 Lesley
So, you know, if you're feeling like, you know, I'm doing my thing in school, but I wish I could be having a broader reach.
00:35:53 Lesley
I wish my, my expertise could be better leveraged.
00:35:56 Lesley
I wish I could just do more for the students that I care about in the community that I work for.
00:36:01 Lesley
I would
00:36:02 Lesley
that there is an entry point within this book that resonates with you.
00:36:07 Lesley
I think that one thing that's really important is that every SLP works in a unique community and setting.
00:36:12 Lesley
And I wouldn't expect that there would be any SLP that would say, yes, Leslie, every single idea from your book was something that is perfect for me in my setting and I am going to go and do tomorrow.
00:36:22 Lesley
But I think that if you think about what are the needs of your school community that are being unmet, that you feel like you could help with, that you aren't
00:36:32 Lesley
you know, changing the culture around AAC, changing the way that we think about, you know, universal access to alternative forms of communication, you know, related to AAC, whether that's thinking about meeting the needs of students that have speech sound disorders that are being met, thinking about children that are at risk for literacy deficits that kind of we could veer to the right pathway early on in their school journey through, you know, classroom based lessons on phonological awareness,
00:37:02 Lesley
whether that is thinking more about vocabulary.
00:37:05 Lesley
Vocabulary, I think, is an area we haven't talked a lot about, but it's a very important area in schools and thinking about creating a more vocabulary centric
00:37:16 Lesley
It's part of the morning routine.
00:37:21 Lesley
It's something you do when you get off the bus, when you get on the bus.
00:37:24 Lesley
I talked to an SLP who did a lot of really amazing things with having different objects around that were kind of became part of the school culture.
00:37:32 Lesley
We're always learning new words together and bulletin boards, things that she sent home.
00:37:36 Lesley
So there's so many entry points.
00:37:38 Lesley
And I think that somebody that's thinking about what can I do to serve my school community better and just
00:37:43 Lesley
be the SLP that makes the impact that I want to.
00:37:46 Lesley
I believe all SLPs working in schools care about the children that they serve and the broader community that they're part of.
00:37:53 Lesley
So I would say that it would give you a lot of ideas.
00:37:56 Lesley
When I read this book, sometimes I feel like, oh my gosh, there's so many ideas that are jam packed in it.
00:38:01 Lesley
But part of my thinking is that I want there to be at least an idea that would resonate.
00:38:06 Lesley
Everybody who reads it, there's going to be one thing that they could say I could do it the next morning.
00:38:11 Lesley
And my book is really deliberately written so
00:38:13 Lesley
Every tool has these step-by-step guides.
00:38:16 Lesley
Even though I say MTSS is not step-by-step, I try to, as much as I can, give very explicit ideas and always a real world story of someone who's doing it.
00:38:25 Lesley
If you want to take that into practice, you're not left wondering, how do I take this idea and put it into practice?
00:38:31 Lesley
You really have a good example and some steps to get started and some support to be like, yeah, be creative, come up with some new ideas.
00:38:39 Lesley
There's a lot of things that can fit within MTSS.
00:38:43 Chris
All right.
00:38:44 Chris
How do they get it?
00:38:45 Chris
What, what's the best way to get the book and to learn more?
00:38:49 Lesley
So it is available on Blura Publishing.
00:38:53 Lesley
Of course, that is a great, um, resource for it's also sold on our favorite bookseller of Amazon.
00:38:58 Lesley
So that's the way you prefer to buy books.
00:39:01 Lesley
Um, and you know, I also would encourage people if they are interested in MTSS, I have a Facebook group page that's called SLPs for MTSS that we discuss all things
00:39:13 Lesley
related to MTSS.
00:39:14 Lesley
Sometimes we have live speakers and all those other things, listening to podcasts and otherwise is another way to learn more about MTSS.
00:39:23 Lesley
But I would say plural publishing, Amazon, that is your, that's your source for looking for this book.
00:39:29 Chris
Awesome.
00:39:30 Chris
Awesome.
00:39:30 Chris
I think I belong to that Facebook group.
00:39:32 Chris
So
00:39:33 Chris
pretty sure.
00:39:34 Lesley
Um, come join us sometime.
00:39:37 Chris
Um, okay, so here's my final question, Leslie.
00:39:40 Chris
What comes next?
00:39:41 Chris
What's sort of floating your boat?
00:39:42 Chris
What are you, you know, okay, the book is out.
00:39:44 Chris
What, um, what's got you curious?
00:39:47 Chris
What's got you thinking?
00:39:48 Chris
What's got you interested?
00:39:49 Chris
Uh, yeah, what comes next?
00:39:51 Lesley
So I am really excited about what comes next actually, because as I've been doing research for this book and other, um,
00:40:00 Lesley
you know, articles, I have ended up having some really interesting conversations with people outside of the US context about how they are engaging with MTSS and thinking about collaboration and inclusion related to speech language pathologists.
00:40:15 Lesley
So I have had some ongoing conversations with SLPs in Switzerland and in Canada particularly, and this fall I am very excited that I have my first research sabbatical and I'm going to be traveling to both of those
00:40:30 Lesley
places to meet with teams of people to learn more about how their school speech language pathologists are functioning within their systems.
00:40:41 Lesley
And I think that one of the sort of barriers that we sometimes talk about related to SLP engagement with MTSS is policy barriers, right?
00:40:50 Lesley
Like, well, you know, policy and funding.
00:40:52 Lesley
Policy and funding are always major barriers, right?
00:40:54 Lesley
Like, well, we have IPs, we have these, we only have limited funding.
00:40:59 Lesley
And both of these are contexts that
00:41:00 Lesley
have totally different structures related to funding and policy that may create new challenges, may create new opportunities.
00:41:09 Lesley
So my next sort of phase is really thinking about let's look outside of the US context.
00:41:15 Lesley
A lot of my own work and I think work in this area has been sort of US centric, although there are some stories from Canada that are featured in my book.
00:41:24 Lesley
And I think that looking outside of the US context and kind of thinking what happens when we have a total
00:41:30 Lesley
different context.
00:41:31 Lesley
There's a lot more autonomy in some of these contexts of SLPs deciding how they can best utilize their time and how they can best serve the communities that they serve without some of the same like IDEA in place or other, you know, federal or state policies.
00:41:46 Lesley
But then, you know, there's challenges with that too.
00:41:49 Lesley
So that is my next phase is taking a more international lens.
00:41:53 Lesley
And I'm very excited about traveling to both of those countries, have already been doing some preliminary conversations
00:42:00 Lesley
about some of the schools that I'm going to visit and some of the school teams that I'm going to meet with.
00:42:04 Lesley
I'm hoping to write something that is a much more comparative global look at how we leverage the limited resources of speech and language services in schools.
00:42:14 Lesley
Even though it's a challenge we talk about a lot in the US, I'm like, oh, what elements of that challenge are universal and what elements are context specific and how can we start to change some of the things that are barriers that are in our way for making an impact?
00:42:30 Lesley
That's the next phase.
00:42:32 Chris
Leslie, I love it.
00:42:33 Chris
Like you said, when you mentioned the pandemic, that was another big aha is that the world has gotten smaller.
00:42:38 Chris
We're all in this together.
00:42:39 Chris
And that's certainly in the world of speech language pathology and specifically AAC, I'll say.
00:42:46 Chris
I mean, I've had more people reach out to me.
00:42:48 Chris
I am presenting in England on the specific language system first approach, MTSS and AAC.
00:42:54 Chris
I am going to Krakow, Poland to do a keynote on it.
00:42:59 Chris
I've presented a
00:43:00 Chris
virtually in Israel, and the list goes on.
00:43:04 Chris
My online course has been translated into French, meaning the world is taking an interest in how do we do things more efficiently and how do we provide these speech language services and AAC to the masses.
00:43:16 Chris
So I feel like you are spot on with your finger on the pulse of what happens next is go global because there's more people that need it.
00:43:23 Chris
So I'm super happy that you get to go and have those experiences.
00:43:27 Lesley
I'm really excited.
00:43:28 Lesley
I'd love to learn more, maybe not at this exact moment, but about how you've been connecting with all of those different countries as well.
00:43:34 Lesley
Because I really feel like the more we realize this is a global challenge, we can collectively think about, well, what are the policies that would support speech language pathologists most optimally in schools?
00:43:45 Lesley
As we think about policy and funding, it doesn't always have to be the way it could be.
00:43:49 Lesley
There could be a different way.
00:43:51 Lesley
And I feel like what can help us see that different way is looking at things in a different context.
00:43:56 Lesley
on that idea.
00:43:57 Chris
I love it.
00:43:58 Chris
Those diverse perspectives from different places and different backgrounds helps you formulate a better picture about what can help for everybody.
00:44:05 Chris
I just want to thank you real quick for the interview and also for my part in the book and reaching out and giving me the opportunity to participate and inform some of the information there.
00:44:16 Chris
I really, really appreciate that.
00:44:18 Chris
And I'm looking forward to the massive success of the book.
00:44:20 Chris
It's going to be awesome.
00:44:22 Lesley
Well, and thank you.
00:44:23 Lesley
I wanted to especially say thank you for your contributions talking to you.
00:44:26 Lesley
your work, getting a chance to highlight it, and then getting a chance to hear other people mention your name.
00:44:32 Lesley
And I was like, oh, I talked to him too, as influencing their own work.
00:44:37 Lesley
It really helped me see the reach of the ideas that you have been talking about and really how people are changing and coming up with really, I feel like exciting and engaging and ultimately impactful ways of being SLPs.
00:44:51 Chris
Leslie, I couldn't agree more.
00:44:53 Chris
We're helping more people.
00:44:54 Chris
We're reaching more people than ever before.
00:44:56 Chris
Can always say today's the best day ever, and tomorrow will just be even better to be someone who needs to use AAC because there's so many people focused on it.
00:45:04 Chris
So, all right.
00:45:05 Lesley
Absolutely.
00:45:06 Chris
Leslie, thank you so much.
00:45:07 Lesley
All right.
00:45:08 Lesley
Thank you so much for having me.
00:45:09 Lesley
It was great to see you again.
00:45:10 Lesley
Have a great summer.
00:45:11 Chris
You too.
00:45:11 Chris
Bye bye.
00:45:13 Lesley
Bye.