Rate My Professor Samantha Siyambalapitiya

Dr Samantha Siyambalapitiya is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Health Sciences and Social Work at Griffith University, where she joined as a Lecturer in January 2012 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in April 2015. She also serves as Dean (Research) for Griffith Health and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Health). A certified practicing speech pathologist with over 20 years of experience in clinical, educational, and research roles, she previously lectured at James Cook University from 2007 to 2011. Dr Siyambalapitiya holds a PhD from The University of Queensland (2010), with a thesis titled 'The Influence of Aging and Neurological Impairment on Lexical-Semantic Processing in Bilinguals', along with a Bachelor of Speech Pathology (Honours) and a Bachelor of Science. As Program Director for the Master of Speech Pathology, she has shaped training for future clinicians.

Her academic interests focus on communication disabilities, particularly aphasia rehabilitation and assessment in bilingual individuals and those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Leading the Sympatico Research Group, her work addresses stroke care disparities, interpreter use in rehabilitation, services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults, and interventions for multilingual populations. Key publications include 'Bilingualism and aging: Reversal of the cognate advantage in older bilingual adults' (Applied Psycholinguistics, 2009), 'Assessment of a Samoan–English speaker with bilingual aphasia: “it’s hard”' (2015), 'Improved word comprehension in Global aphasia using a modified semantic feature analysis treatment' (Aphasiology, 2016), 'Community-based interventions for building social inclusion of refugees and asylum seekers in Australia: A systematic review' (2017), 'Longitudinal Social and Communication Outcomes in Children with Autism Raised in Bi/Multilingual Environments' (2022), 'Language intervention in bilingual children with developmental language disorder: A systematic review' (2022), 'Comparing acute hospital outcomes for people with post-stroke aphasia who do and do not require an interpreter' (2023), and 'Requiring an Interpreter Influences Stroke Care and Outcomes for People With Aphasia During Inpatient Rehabilitation' (2025). She has received research grants such as the Stroke Foundation Research Grant for optimising acute transitional care for culturally and linguistically diverse stroke survivors and the Speech Pathology Australia Queensland Registration Board Legacy Grant for management of bi/multilingual aphasia.