October 2012 - February 2013 Summary

AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH COUNCIL FUTURE FELLOWSHIP UPDATE

‘Speaking my language: International speech acquisition in Australia’ 

Written by Kim Woodland, Research Institute for Professional Practice, Learning and Education for the February 2013 RIPPLE Update

The transition to 2013 hasn’t slowed Sharynne’s Future Fellowship research. Over the last few months she has travelled to Jamaica, attended conferences, presented lectures, had a book chapter published, and several journal articles have been accepted for publication.

Two important launches occurred in November:

·     The anticipated position paper on Multilingual children with speech sound disorders was released by the International Expert Panel on Multilingual Children’s Speech of which Sharynne is the chair. The paper draws on international understandings of professional practice and outlines best practice recommendations to support children with speech sound disorders.

·     The Multilingual Children’s Speech website, a compilation of resources for speech-language pathologists (and others) who work with multilingual children with speech sound disorders. Within the first two weeks, the Google analytics report for the website showed an impressive 4,363 page views, with the top countries accessing the site being the United States, Slovenia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Japan. The website also won the Speechwoman of the Month website award for December.

During November, Sharynne also spent time, along with RIPPLE PhD scholar Sarah Verdon, working with members of the Australian Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs analysing data as part of a national study, Footprints in Time: Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC). In 2013, they plan to submit a journal article about Indigenous children’s speech and language competence from this analysis.

In January, Sharynne and Dr Karla Washington from the University of Cincinnati traveled to Jamaica to work with researchers from the Jamaican Language Unit and the University of the West Indies to study children's speech and language acquisition. They spent a few weeks testing and documenting young Jamaican children’s speech and language skills, as well as meeting with other researchers. While in Jamaica, Sharynne presented an invited lecture, The importance of supporting children’s speech and language development, at the University of the West Indies.

In February, Sharynne presented another lecture, Applying the ICF-CY and the World Report on Disability to supporting children’s communication, via videoconference to students at the University of Cincinnati. Sharynne discussed how she has applied these documents to her research in the LSIC, the ARC-funded Sound Effects study, and her Future Fellowship.

For more information, please visit Sharynne’s blog: Speaking my languages.

Dr Karla Washington and Sharynne working in Jamaica