Dr. Sylvia Onesti Richardson is Distinguished Professor of Communication
Sciences and Disorders, and Emeritus Clinical Professor of Pediatrics
at the University of South Florida in Tampa. She has degrees in both
education and medicine, having received her B.A. from Stanford University,
the M.A. in Education of the Exceptional from Teachers College, Columbia
University, and the M.D.C.M. from the Faculty of Medicine, McGill University.
She received her training in Pediatrics from the Montreal Children's
Hospital and from the Boston Children's Medical Center. In 1984 she was
awarded the Litt.D. (Hon) by Emerson College in Boston. She is also an
ASHA certified Speech/Language Pathologist and a Montessori primary teacher,
certified by the American Montessori Society (AMS) and the Association
Montessori International (AMI).
In 1949 she established at Boston Children's Medical Center the first
Speech-Language Clinic in any children's hospital in the United States.
She was President of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
(ASHA) in 1973-74, Chair of the Professional Advisory Board of the Learning
Disabilities Assoc.(LDA) for nine years, and President of the International
Dyslexia Association (formerly the Orton Dyslexia Society) from 1984-88.
She was a member of the founding Board of Directors of the American
Montessori Society in 1964. She was Chair of the National Joint Committee
on Learning Disabilities from 1997-1999, and a member for 30 years. She
is past President of the Multidisciplinary Academy of Clinical Education,
and past President of the Florida Branch of the IDA.
She has contributed much to the literature of her field (over 100 publications),
and her consultant appointments have been many at state, national and
international levels. She has received many honors, including the LDA
Learning Disability Award, the Honors of the American Speech-Language-Hearing
Association, the Samuel T. Orton Award from the International Dyslexia
Association, the Distinguished Alumni Award from Teachers College, Columbia
University, the Rawson Lifetime Achievement Award from the International
Dyslexia Association, and the Arrowsmith Award from the New England Network
for Learning Disabilities.