Emma day

Two Emmas worked with me at the Children's Voices Centre today :)

Emma Hayes: CVC Senior Adminstration Officer 

Emma Scanlon: CeTasSSD Research Assistant

Sharynne, Emma H and Emma S

Emma S working in The Nest

 

It takes a villiage to submit a grant

Thanks to everyone who has supported me to get my latest grant application completed including DVC-R Neena Mitter, PVCI Michael Friend/Jason White, Lisa Limbrick, Sharon Geltch, Annette Harris, Lee Williamson, Helen L. Blake, Stefania Graham (who clicked submit) and Emma Hayes and Emma Scanlon who celebrated submission 

Learning from Lee on Sunday evening!

Support from Helen on Wednesday

CSU Research Office - Stefania Graham

Celebrating submission with Emma S at The Treehouse

ASSA Panel D (Education, Psychology & Public Health) committee meeting

This morning we held a short meeting of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia Panel D Committee (Education, Psychology & Public Health) 

• Professor Don Byrne Chair (Psychology) ACT, ANU 
• Professor Henry Jackson 2021 Deputy Chair (Psychology) VIC, UoM
• Professor Anne Castles Member (Psychology) NSW, MQ 
• Professor Kim Cornish Member (Psychology) VIC, Monash 
• Professor Russell Tytler Member (Education) VIC, Deakin 
• Professor Jenny Gore Member (Education) NSW, Newcastle 
• Professor Sharynne McLeod Member (Health Sciences) NSW, CSU 
• Professor Julie McLeod Member (Education) VIC, UoM 
• Professor Peng Bi Member (Health Sciences) 
• Zoe Perry 2026 2028 Manager – Fellowship, Governance & Awards

Special issues

I am currently co-editing two special issues: 

1. Listening to children with diverse communication abilities | Guest Editors: Sharynne McLeod and Holly McAlister with Journal Editors: Judy Clegg and Victoria Joffe | Child Language Teaching and Therapy, in process to appear 2026 |  https://journals.sagepub.com/home/CLT | Call for papers: https://journals.sagepub.com/pb-assets/cmscontent/CLT/CLTT-Call%20for%20Papers-ListeningTo%20Children-FINAL-1733118416.pdf
2. Children’s communication and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) | Guest Editors: Sharynne McLeod, Helen L. Blake and Kathy Cologon  | Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, in process to appear 2027 | https://pubs.asha.org/journal/lshss | Call for papers: https://academy.pubs.asha.org/call-for-papers/childrens-communication-and-the-united-nations-convention-on-the-rights-of-the-child-crc/

I have been guest editor of some other special issues that have had a lot of international interest:

1. Communication is a human right: Celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights | Guest Editor: Sharynne McLeod  | International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 2018, 20(1)  | https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/iasl20/20/1 | Downloads: 47,1297 Citations: 661 Altmetrics: 1,256 (July 2026)
2. Communication, swallowing and the Sustainable Development Goals | Guest Editor: Sharynne McLeod and Julie Marshall | International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology  2023, 25(1) | https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/iasl20/25/1

 

International Speech Screener (ISS)

The International Speech Screener (ISS, McLeod, 2013) is a 50-item picture-naming task that samples all English consonants and six English consonant clusters on two occasions in word-initial position. Words vary in length and stress. The ISS was designed to ensure that there were two examples of each word-initial consonant. Most pairs of words for each word-initial consonant contained a monosyllabic word and a bisyllabic or polysyllabic word (e.g., dog, dinosaur). Within these words most English vowels, within-word consonants, word-final consonants, and some word-final consonant clusters are sampled. The ISS is presented via PowerpointTM with one picture per slide. An audio-voice recording of the target word is available on each slide and played during the imitation condition. 

More information about its development: 

McLeod, S., & Masso, S. (2019). Screening children's speech: The impact of imitated elicitation and word position. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 50(1), 71–82. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_LSHSS-17-0141

Writing the final chapter of your PhD

Today Sarah Bartlett, Holly McAlister and I spent an hour looking at the formula for writing their final PhD chapters (then they write their first PhD chapter).

I always ask my students to print the work they have written and read it in hard copy before summarizing it in their final chapter. We were very impressed with Sarah's large pile of double-sided printing!

CSU Foundation Day: Blast from the past!

CSU's Foundation Day social media includes a photo of my son and I in 2001 advertising the new speech pathology course at CSU! (Thanks Holly for finding this).

ASHA Alfred K. Kawana Award for Lifetime Achievement in Publications

What an honour!

https://academy.pubs.asha.org/2026/07/2026-asha-journals-awards/

July 17, 2026
We’re pleased to announce the 2026 ASHA Journals Awards! As we have in the past, we’re announcing awardees in two categories: (1) The Alfred K. Kawana Award for Lifetime Achievement in Publications and (2) the Editor’s Awards. You can find more information on the ASHA Journals Awards, including present and past recipients, on the ASHA Journals Awards page on ASHAWire.

The Alfred K. Kawana Award for Lifetime Achievement in Publications
This award, named in memory of former Director of ASHA Publications Alfred K. Kawana, recognizes an ongoing history of exemplary publications. Awardees have authored articles in ASHA Journals with significant educational, scientific, or clinical value over a period of at least 10 years. For information on the Kawana Award, including present and past recipients, see the Kawana Award page on ASHAWire.

 

2026 Kawana Awardee: Sharynne McLeod, PhD

Dr. Sharynne McLeod is a Distinguished Professor of Speech and Language Acquisition at Charles Sturt University in Australia. She has received honors from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and served six times on the ASHA Convention Program Committee. She served as an editorial board member ASHA Journals, was the lead author on articles that received ASHA Journals Editor’s Awards in 2018 and 2019, and has received worldwide acclaim for transformative research on communication rights.

She has authored or co-authored 50 articles in ASHA Journals, dating back to 1994. Together, these articles have amassed more than 2,800 citations and have been read more than 700,000 times.

One article, “Children’s English Consonant Acquisition in the United States: A Review,” which she co-authored with Dr. Kathryn Crowe and published in American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology (AJSLP) in 2020, has recently surpassed 300,000 downloads, and “Children’s Consonant Acquisition in 27 Languages: A Cross-Linguistic Review,” co-authored with Dr. Kathryn Crowe and published in the November 2018 issue of AJSLP) has surpassed the 200,000-download mark. These are two of the most downloaded papers from ASHA journals.

Alfred K. Kawana Award for Lifetime Achievement in Publications

https://pubs.asha.org/journals/Alfred_K_Kawana_Award_for_Lifetime_Achievement_in_Publications 

About the Award
Alfred K. KawanaThe Alfred K. Kawana Award for Lifetime Achievement in Publications is reserved for outstanding researchers/scholars who have a sustained history of exemplary publications in ASHA journals. Over a period of at least 10 years, recipients shall have authored ASHA journal articles that are meritorious in terms of educational, scientific, or clinical value, and thus contributed significantly to the discipline. This award is named in memory of the late Alfred K. Kawana (pictured), former director of ASHA publications.

Candidates for this award may be nominated by any member of the Journals Board, which discusses and selects recipients annually. This award is presented at the Researcher-Academic Town Meeting (RATM) of the ASHA Convention, and awardees are acknowledged during the Awards Ceremony.

There have been 25 Awardees (1989–2024) including Ray Kent, Laurence B. Leonard, Lawrence D. Shriberg, Mabel L. Rice, J. Bruce Tomblin, Marc E. Fey, Mark Onslow and Ann Packman, Karla K. McGregor

Article about the Intelligibility in Context Scale wins JSLHR editor's award!

Congratulations to the team from Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Waisman Center,  University of Wisconsin–Madison who have won the Journal of Speech, Language, Hearing - Speech Editor's Award for the following paper:

Soriano, J. U., Mahr, T. J., Rathouz, P. J., & Hustad, K. C. (2025). Characterizing the relationship between the Intelligibility in Context Scale and transcription intelligibility in typically developing English-speaking children between ages 2;6 and 9;11.  American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 34(5), 2877-2892. https://doi.org/doi:10.1044/2025_AJSLP-24-00530  

The award was announced here: https://academy.pubs.asha.org/2026/07/2026-asha-journals-awards/

We are thrilled to see the rigor of our Intelligibility in Context Scale (ICS) being applied in such a robust way.

• ICS: https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-assessments/ics
• Original manuscript: McLeod, S., Harrison, L. J., & McCormack, J. (2012). Intelligibility in Context Scale: Validity and reliability of a subjective rating measure. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 55, 648–656. https://doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2011/10-0130) 

 

CeTasSSD first CONSORT diagram

Today Felicity and I worked out the first version of the 2026 CeTasSSD CONSORT diagram

https://cdn-links.lww.com/permalink/phm/a/phm_00_00_2018_03_14_wu_ajpmr-d-17-00294_sdc1.pdf 

 

CVC2026: 145 abstracts accepted from 35 countries

We have just finalised the following details for the CVC2026 conferece. Thank you Carolyn for your oversight.

I am excited to share that we have accepted 145 submissions to present at CVC2026 from 35 countries: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, Fiji, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Lithuania, Malaysia, Malta, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, New Zealand, Nigeria, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Viet Nam 
The final number may change as 8 authors are still yet to revise their abstract. It is going to be an awesome conference. 
Dr Carolyn Gregoric Research Manager, CVC2026 Conference Secretary 
Children’s Voices Centre

CVC visiting scholar Dr Zinnia Mevawalla: Kangaroos and sunsets

Our visiting scholar Dr Zinnia Mevawalla, joined A/Prof Kathy Cologon and myself to meet the CSU kangaroos and enjoy the sunset over Bathurst. It was a perfect rural Australian moment during her visit.

There were too many kangaroos to count!

We saw the rare albino kangaroo on Mt Panorama!

 

Welcome to our CVC Adjuncts

CVC is honoured to have adjunct researchers and professors join us from across the world. Today we welcomed some of our new adjuncts this morning:

Welcome to Prof Karla Washington (Canada/Jamaica), Dr Jinjin (Helen) Lu (China), Dr Josephine Bampoe (Ghana), Matthew Stapleton, Dr Amanda Niland, Dr Olivia Karaolis

Dr Zinnia Mevawalla, Prof Sharynne  McLeod, A/Prof Kathy Cologon and some of our new CVC adjuncts

 

CVC visiting scholar: Dr Zinnia Mevawalla: Presentation

We are delighted to welcome Dr Zinnia Mevawalla to the Children's Voices Centre as our visiting scholar. Dr Mevawalla is a Senior Lecturer in Early Years Education at the University of Strathclyde  in Glasgow, Scotland, UK. https://www.strath.ac.uk/staff/mevawallazinniadr/

 Here are her presentation details at The Treehouse on Thursday 16 July at 12:00 pm.

Tak tent o sma things - coming together through relational curiosity to change hearts and minds for inclusive education in the early years.

Leadership is essential to actualising the inclusive cause, however access to professional learning opportunities, especially in the Scottish early years workforce have been limited.
The perceived divide between theory and practice related to inclusion has also highlighted discourses such as those echoed in Scottish newspapers - “if inclusion only works in theory, it doesn’t work at all” (McEnaney, 2025). This perceived divide emphasises the importance of grounding any professional learning in a deep understanding of the local intricacies and nuances of “real world” leadership and education practices.
The changing hearts and minds programme (CHAMP) was rooted in the bringing together of leaders from within one local authority, and researches in Scottish and Australian universities. In this paper we report on the “how”, “what” and “so what?” of the CHAMP project, emphasising how we (leaders, parents, practitioners, and researchers) came together, what happened (the key findings and significance) and where we plan to go from here.
This presentation offers a wonderful opportunity to engage with Dr Mevawalla’s work, hear about her current research, and connect with colleagues across the Children’s Voices Centre and wider affiliate network.

People are very welcome to attend either in person at The Treehouse, Building 1451, Bathurst Campus, or online via Zoom: https://charlessturt.zoom.us/j/66761820743
 

 

Children's advisory group at The Treehouse and CSU TV studio

This week members of our CVC Children's Advisory Group came to The Treehouse to create artwork representing their ideal hospital for our advice to the World Health Organization.

Next, they went to the CSU TV studio and recorded their insights about the Disability Discrimination Act and Children Draw Health that will be presented at the CVC2026 conference in September.

It's such a joy to have the children visiting.

 

Welcome Amy Whitfield: CVC Online Content Creator

Welcome to our newest staff member, Amy Whitfield who is our CVC Online Content Creator. Amy has a communications degree from Charles Sturt University and has spent time in Building 1451 before it was The Treehouse. Her main role is to support the CVC2026 conference, but she also will support CVC to profile its impactful work. We are so excited to have you join us Amy.

Carolyn Gregoric, Sharynne  McLeod, Amy Whitfield

Analytics: Communication rights special issue

We have just calculated the most recent analytics for the IJSLP communication rights special issue (International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 20(1) https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/iasl20/20/1) from the publisher's website:

• Total Views: 471,297
• Total Cross Ref Citations: 661
• Total Altmetric Score: 1256 

My lead article has had 72,615 views, 133 citations, 180 Altmetric score. 

McLeod, S. (2018). Communication rights: Fundamental human rights for all. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 20(1), 3–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2018.1428687 

This is amazing reach. 

Analytics: Multilingual Children's Speech website

The Multilingual Children's Speech website is popular: 303,488 views by 194,058 active users (1 Jan 2023 - 13 July2026) with the following pages being the most popular 

• Intelligibility in Context Scale: 83,422 views
• Speech acquisition: 34,849 views
• Speech assessment: 32,962 views
• English consonants: 20,699 views

 

CeTasSSD data entry into Phon

Felicity Laurence and Emma Scanlon are working on entering all of the 2026 data from just over 900 students into Phon. We appreciate the input from Prof Yvan Rose to tweak some of the program for our Australian context.

 

Children Draw Belonging: Children's insights

It has been a very special week with my young friends who have had such an influence on my research and how I listen to children. In the past, this group of children have initiated and shaped our research projects: Children Draw Talking, Children Draw Playing and  Children Draw Health. Today they participated in the Children Draw Belonging research. This is the first project that they have not initiated (this time another group of children initiated it). They had some good insights. I love learning from these children.