July - September 2011 - Summary

AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH COUNCIL FUTURE FELLOWSHIPUPDATE

‘Speaking my language: International speech acquisition in Australia’
Written by Kim Woodland, Research Institute for Professional Practice, Learning and Education for the September 2011 RIPPLE Update

Since the last Update, Sharynne has continued researching, collaborating, and presenting her work into international speech acquisition. Dr Elise Baker from the University of Sydney visited Sharynne in Bathurst during early June to work on their co-authored book Children’s Speech. In late June, Sharynne travelled to Darwin to present at the 2011 national conference of Speech Pathology Australia, where she co-presented three papers. During July, she presented and co-presented papers on linguistic diversity and school outcomes for children with communication impairment at a two-day early childhood research workshop in Bathurst.

Later in July, Sharynne travelled to Canada for a range of events, presentations, and meetings. In Montréal (Quebec, Canada), she visited Isabelle Simard’s multilingual speech-language pathology clinic (where assessments and interventions are provided in many languages), met with academics from McGill University and the University of Montréal, and finalised and submitted a book—‘Listening to children and young people with speech, language and communication needs’—with co-author Professor Sue Roulstone. From 19 to 23 July, Sharynne attended the 12th meeting of the International Association for the Study of Child Language (IASCL) at the Université du Québec à Montréal, where she presented a poster on linguistic diversity in Australian children. Ontario, Canada, was the next stop, to visit the University of Western Ontario, and then on to Toronto to present an invited seminar at the Bloorview Research Institute. A seminar presentation at the University of British Columbia, and a visit to a First Nations community concluded Sharynne’s Canadian research visit.