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 May 2013 RIPPLE Update
Sharynne has continued working on her Future Fellowship,
participating in CRN-related research, launching the ARC Sound Start study in
March, and supervising PhD students.
Back in January, Sharynne travelled to Jamaica with Karla
Washington from the University of Cincinnati to study Jamaican children’s speech
and language acquisition. Karla and a team from the University of Cincinnati
continued the data collection, and 60 children have now had their speech and
language skills in Jamaican and English assessed. The researchers are now
analysing the data, in readiness for presenting their findings later this
year.
In April, Sharynne attended the first meeting of Speech
Pathology Australia's Australian Strategic Advisory Group on the International
Communication Project. The aim of the intern
ational group is to foreground
communication and people with communication disability. To date, five
international professional organisations are involved in the discussions, with a
focus on hosting events in 2014 and beyond.
Sharynne has also co-authored a manuscript outlining the work
of the International Expert Panel on Multilingual Children’s Speech that met in
Cork, Ireland in June 2012 and the resulting position paper.
McLeod, S.,
Verdon, S., Bowen, C., & the International Expert Panel on Multilingual
Children’s Speech. (In press). International aspirations for speech-language
pathologists’ practice with multilingual children with speech sound disorders:
Development of a position paper. Journal of Communication Disorders.
Her journal article publication record for 2013 already looks
outstanding: to date she has 6 articles submitted, 6 in press, and 7
published.
For more information, please visit Sharynne’s blog: Speaking my languages.
