Writing chapters for our book: "Children's speech"

This week Dr Elise Baker has been visiting from The University of Sydney. We have been writing chapters for our new book Children's Speech: An Evidence-Based Approach to Assessment and Intervention. We have been drawing on the wisdom and knowledge of so many authors in our field (see the picture of a few of the books we have been consulting!). Today Elise Baker and I went to the Charles Sturt University Dentistry and Oral Health Clinic to take photos of the mouths of ourselves and our family and friends. These photos will be used to demonstrate how speech is produced. We have had a very productive week - and wish that we could do this more often.

Elise and Sharynne hard at work with one of our dental photos in the background

Saying aaaah to get the perfect shot of my uvular for our book

A few of the books informing the field of childhood speech sound disorders

The cycle of publishing journal articles - 2012

From time to time I find it helpful to reflect on the entire cycle of publishing journal articles. Here is what 2012 is looking like so far: 4 published, 6 in press, and 9 in submission. There are more articles that are currently being written and planned. It is such a pleasure to publish with my students and colleagues on topics that hopefully will make a difference in children's lives.

PUBLISHED

1. McCormack, J., McAllister, L. McLeod, S. & Harrison, L. J., (2012). Knowing, having, doing: The battles of childhood speech impairment. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 28, 141-157.
2. Williams, C. J. & McLeod, S. (2012). Speech-language pathologists’ assessment and intervention practices with multilingual children.  International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 14(3), 292–305.
3. 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.
4. Toohill, B., McLeod, S. & McCormack, J. (2012). Effect of dialect on identification and severity of speech impairment in Indigenous Australian children, Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 26(2), 101-119.

IN PRESS

1. McLeod, S., Daniel, G., Barr, J. (2012, in press August). “When he’s around his brothers ... he’s not so quiet”:  The private and public worlds of school-aged children with speech sound disorder. Journal of Communication Disorders.
   
2. Wren, Y., McLeod, S., White, P., Miller, L. & Roulstone, S. (2012, in press August). Speech characteristics of 8-year-old children with speech difficulties: Findings from a prospective population study. Journal of Communication Disorders.
3. Crowe, K., McLeod, S., & Ching, T. Y. C. (2012, in press June). The cultural and linguistic diversity of 3-year-old children with hearing loss. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education.
4. Hambly, H., Wren, Y., McLeod, S., & Roulstone, S. (2012, in press May). The influence of bilingualism on speech production: A systematic review. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders.
5. To, C. K. -S., Cheung, P. S. -P., & McLeod, S. (2012, in press March). A population study of children's acquisition of Hong Kong Cantonese consonants, vowels, and tones. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.
6. Washington, K. N., Thomas-Stonell, N., McLeod, S., & Warr-Leeper, G. (2012, in press February). Parents’ perspectives on the professional-child relationship and children’s functional communication following speech-language intervention. Canadian Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology / Revue canadienne d'orthophonie et d'audiologie.

IN SUBMISSION and UNDER REVIEW (with many different co-authors)

1. Designs and decisions: The creation and use of informal measures for assessing speech production in children..
2. The impact of extrinsic demographic factors on Cantonese speech sound acquisition.
3. Construct Validity of the FOCUS© (Focus on the Outcomes of Communication Under Six): A Functional Communication Outcome Measure for Preschool Children.
4. Predictors and outcomes of communicative participation for preschoolers with speech-language impairments with and without concomitant mobility impairments.
5. Applying the World Report on Disability to Australian children with communication disability.
   
6. Multilingual children with hearing loss: Factors contributing to language use at home and early education.
7. Factors that enhance English-speaking speech-language pathologists’ transcription of Cantonese-speaking children.
8. Speech sound disorders in a community sample of preschool children.
9. Phonetic variations and sound changes in Hong Kong Cantonese and implications for speech sound assessment.

When he’s around his brothers ... he’s not so quiet

The following manuscript has just been accepted for publication:

McLeod, S., Daniel, G., Barr, J. (2012, in press August). “When he’s around his brothers ... he’s not so quiet”:  The private and public worlds of school-aged children with speech sound disorder. Journal of Communication Disorders.

ABSTRACT

  Children interact with people in context: including home, school, and in the community. Understanding children’s relationships within context is important for supporting children’s development. Using child-friendly methodologies, the purpose of this research was to understand the lives of children with speech sound disorder (SSD) in context. Thirty-four interviews were undertaken with six school-aged children identified with SSD, and their siblings, friends, parents, grandparents, and teachers. Interview transcripts, questionnaires, and children’s drawings were analysed to reveal that these children experienced the world in context dependent ways (private vs. public worlds). Family and close friends typically provided a safe, supportive environment where children could be themselves and participate in typical childhoods. In contrast, when out of these familiar contexts, the children often were frustrated, embarrassed, and withdrawn, their relationships changed, and they were unable to get their message across in public contexts. Speech-language pathology assessment and intervention could be enhanced by interweaving the valuable insights of children, siblings, friends, parents, teachers, and other adults within children’s worlds to more effectively support these children in context.

Providing equitable and quality service for multilingual children

The School of Teacher Education Research and Scholarship Brown Bag Seminar for Monday 27th August is titled: "Providing equitable and quality service for multilingual children with speech sound disorders in a linguistically diverse context". This presentation was made by Sarah Verdon, a PhD student I am supervising with Sandie Wong. The presentation was part of her endorsement of her PhD candidature. 

Elise Baker (University of Sydney), Sarah Verdon, Sandie Wong, Sharynne

Here is the abstract:
Australia is one of the world’s most multilingual countries. However, little is known about the demographics of Australia’s multilingual children and the early childhood education and health services available to support them. Most multilingual children are able to acquire their languages without difficulty; however, some children do not. Multilingual speech and language acquisition is different from monolingual acquisition and its unique and complex nature is less understood. Multilingual children with speech sound disorders are not being identified at the same rate as monolingual children and therefore are at risk of the many known impacts of speech sound disorders such as poor literacy development and later educational and social success. This research aims to provide demographic data about the linguistic diversity of multilingual children, their location in Australia, their language acquisition patterns, and the early childhood education and health services available to them. Through the study of innovative practices of early childhood education and health professionals from around the world, the second aim of this research is to identify strategies to effectively support Australia’s multilingual children with speech sound disorder. The knowledge gained from this research will inform the development of high quality, equitable, integrated services for multilingual children and increase positive outcomes for their future educational and social success.

Speech characteristics of 8-year-old children with speech difficulties

The following manuscript has just been accepted for publication:

Wren, Y., McLeod, S., White, P., Miller, L. & Roulstone, S. (2012, in press August). Speech characteristics of 8-year-old children with speech difficulties: Findings from a prospective population study. Journal of Communication Disorders.

ABSTRACT
Speech disorder that continues into middle childhood is rarely studied compared with speech disorder in the early years. Speech production in single words, connected speech and nonword repetition was assessed for 7,390 8-year-old children within the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). The majority (n=6,399) had typical speech and 50 of these children served as controls. The remainder were categorised as using common clinical distortions only (CCD, n=582) or speech difficulties (SDiff, n=409).  The samples from the CCD children were not analysed further. Speech samples from the SDiff and the control children were transcribed and analysed in terms of percentage consonants correct, error type and syllable structure. Findings were compared with those from children in the Shriberg et al. (1997) lifespan database (n=25). The 8-year-old children from ALSPAC in the SDiff and control groups achieved similar speech accuracy scores to the 8-year-old children in the lifespan database. The SDiff group had consistently lower scores than the ALSPAC control group, with the following measures most clearly differentiating the groups: single word task (percentage of substitutions and distortions), connected speech task (percentage of vowels correct PVC, percentage of omission of singletons and entire clusters, and stress pattern matches), nonword repetition task (PVC, percentage of entire clusters omitted, percentage of distortions, and percentage of stress pattern matches). Connected speech and nonword samples provide useful supplementary data for identifying older children with atypical speech.

A busy day

During the time I have been working on my Future Fellowship I don't think that any day has been exactly the same as any other. A research fellowship is not all about sitting at a computer and typing (as this blog demonstrates). Yesterday I didn't leave my office, but had multiple teleconferences and Skype calls. Here is how yesterday looked:
8:00am - check emails that have arrived overnight from all around the world
9:30am - listen to my PhD student's research presentation in Wagga Wagga (4 hours away)
11:00am - attend a meeting regarding the Collaborative Research Network in Wagga Wagga
12:30pm - discuss a book proposal with a colleague in Albury (6 hours away)
2:00pm - write a section of a book chapter and check the statistical analysis for a journal article
4:30pm - discuss student projects with 2 groups of students in Viet Nam
6:00pm - discuss reviewers' comments about a journal article with my masters' student who graduated last year in Sydney (3 hours away)
9:00pm - discuss the final tweaks of a journal article with colleagues in the USA and Sydney

Parents’ perspectives on the professional-child relationship and children’s functional communication

The following paper has been accepted for publication, based on Karla Washington's postdoctoral research conducted in Canada (I was one of her supervisors).

UPDATED REFERENCE (OCTOBER, 2012)

Washington, K. N., Thomas-Stonell, N., McLeod, S., & Warr-Leeper, G. (2012). Parents’ perspectives on the professional-child relationship and children’s functional communication following speech-language intervention. Canadian Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology / Revue canadienne d'orthophonie et d'audiologie, 36(3), 220-233.

Abstract

Background. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) use family-centred practices to implement intervention. Thus, consideration of family-based outcomes is encouraged. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health – Children and Youth version (ICF-CY) framework supports SLPs consideration of these outcomes (e.g., parental-perspectives on children’s Activities and Participation and Environmental Factors associated with speech-language intervention).

Purpose. To explore parents’ perspectives about: (a) the child-SLP relationship (Environmental Factors) and (b) children’s functional communication (Activities and Participation)

Method. Sixty-seven parents of preschoolers with communication disorders participated in this study. All 67 parents completed pre-intervention and post-intervention structured interviews about their children’s functional communication. Parents of preschoolers who received intervention (n=52) provided ratings and comments regarding the child-SLP relationship established during intervention with the clinician (n=7). Themes were identified using content analysis. Fifteen children were waitlist controls and did not receive intervention.

Results. Parents of preschoolers who received intervention reported significantly greater gains in children’s functional communication compared to those who did not. Most parents (94%) provided positive/very-positive perspectives about the child-SLP relationship. The child-SLP rapport and the SLPs’ professional competence were common themes identified in parents’ perspectives.

Conclusion: (a) Significant gains in preschool children’s functional communication occurred following speech and language intervention, and (b) factors such as the rapport established between the child and the SLP as well as the SLPs’ professionalism were considered by parents to be important factors for creating a positive child-SLP relationship during speech and language intervention.

Visitors from Việt Nam

This weekend we were very pleased to host two visitors from Pham Ngoc Thach University, Hồ Chí Minh City, Việt Nam. They were Lê Thi Thanh Xuân (Xuân) and Lê Khánh Điền (Điền). Xuân and Điền have almost completed their speech pathology course at Pham Ngoc Thach University and have received a Hoc Mai Foundation scholarship to study in Australia for 3 months. I taught them when I visited in 2011, and have been working with Xuân on her final project via Skype for a number of months. It was good to work face-to-face on our phonological analysis of Vietnamese children’s speech.

One of the most exciting aspects of the weekend was that it snowed in a nearby town. This was the first time that Xuân and Điền had ever seen snow! They also enjoyed many other Australian cultural experiences, including seeing kangaroos in the wild. They made us a fantastic Vietnamese dinner of phở and spring rolls. My family wished that they could stay for longer because we learned so much from their visit.

Điền and Xuân's first experience of snow