Sylvia F. Diehl, Ph.D., CCC-SLP has recently retired from the University of South Florida (USF) Department of Communication Sciences in Tampa, Florida. She is the founder of Friends with Sylvia at USF which provides social communication intervention along with parent training to children with autism. She is currently the president of Knowledge Counts which is dedicated to educating parents of children with autism.

Dr. Diehl has supported children with communication disorders and their families for over thirty years and has a long history of clinical experience including public school settings, university settings, and clinical settings. She consults for school systems and conducts workshops locally, nationally, and internationally. She has authored numerous journal articles and book chapters along with continuous education courses for the American Speech Language and Hearing Association.  Her research and publication interests focus on consistent frameworks to support children with disabilities in classroom settings.