Dr Ly Kha Nguyen is a phonetics and linguistics lecturer at
Phạm Ngọc Thạch University and at the HCMC University of Education and Training. She has undertaken a study of typical Vietnamese speech acquisition in over 1000 children in Ho Chi Minh City and surrounding areas. She has invited Ms Xuan and myself to work with her to analyse the data and work towards publishing the data in an English journal. We had many
discussions about her research plans in 2011 - so it is extremely exciting to see that the data have now been collected and the first phase of analysis has been undertaken. On Thursday we spent four hours together discussing the data and writing the first draft of the article. With Ms Xuan's excellent interpreting skills it did not seem that Dr Ly Kha and I spoke different languages - and we were so engrossed in our conversation that we missed lunch! (Each day at the university there is a 2 hour lunch break from 11:30-1:30 where the students eat, then lay out their silk cloth on the ground and have a sleep. Typically that is when English-speaking staff have lunch and meetings). We have planned to keep working on the paper together next week. This paper will form a useful first step for working with children with speech sound disorders in Vietnam.
These
data will provide a preliminary benchmark for decision-making regarding children’s need
for speech-language pathology services and for planning appropriate intervention
goals.
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| Ms Xuan, Dr Ly Kha, and Sharynne |
