Accepting and rejecting submissions to the ASHA convention

Brian Goldstein and I have just completed the task of accepting and rejecting submissions to the Cultural and Linguistic Considerations Across the Discipline committee for the upcoming American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention. Each of the 154 submissions was reviewed by 3-4 committee members, and their reviews and comments provided valuable guidance for the acceptance process. We now have 44 hours of oral presentations (2-hour, 1-hour, and 30-minute sessions) plus 81 posters that have been accepted for presentation. The authors should find out about their papers in the next month or so. Many great sessions have been accepted - and I am looking forward to attending as many as I can in November.

Oxford Word List - High frequency Australian English words

I have just learned about the Oxford Word List that lists high frequency words in Australian children’s writing and reading development. It is available here http://www.oxfordwordlist.com and can be searched by children's school grade, sex, multilingual, and Indigenous status, school setting (SES status), location (urban-rural), and text type (e.g., narrative) . A great resource for considering the vocabulary of young children.

Preparing for my visit to the Icelandic National Hearing and Speech Institute

Later in June I will be visiting the Icelandic National Hearing and Speech Institute. Here is their advertisement about my visit. I am looking forward to visiting Iceland and talking with them about assessment and intervention for children with speech sound disorders (including multilingual children).

The language trajectories of Australia’s young multilingual children

The Murdoch Childrens Research Centre in Melbourne hosted a 2-day Child Language Research Conference titled Discoveries and New Directions. Sue Roulstone, James Law, and Cate Taylor were invited speakers and Sarah Verdon, my PhD student presented the following paper based on data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children:
Verdon, S., & McLeod, S. The language trajectories of Australia’s young multilingual children.
Thursday concluded with a fun debate to discuss whether "specific" should remain in specific language disorders.

Sarah Verdon presenting her paper

Suzanne Hopf, James Law, and Sarah Verdon

Best paper and poster at the Speech Pathology Australia National Conference!

Congratulations Sarah Verdon and Sarah Masso on being awarded best student paper and poster prizes at the Speech Pathology Australia National Conference!
The prizes were as follows:
Best paper prize (1 prize)

• Sarah Verdon, Sharynne McLeod, and Adam Winsler -  Language diversity, maintenance, and loss: A population study of young Australian children

Best poster prizes (4 prizes)

• Sarah Masso, Elise Baker, Sharynne McLeod, and Jane McCormack - Assessment of phonological awareness in children with speech sound disorders: A systematic review
• Jessica Andrianakis, Angela Ruzzene, Theresa Bowditch, Tanya Gillver, Jane Feutrill, Stephen Woods, Lina Breik, Vince Lavery, Liz Batsoukas, Monica Polimeni, Paul Le Ceve, Leanne Mills - Implementation of protected mealtimes in a sub-acute inpatient setting

There were over 750 attendees and a packed conference program with 6+ concurrent sessions on each of the three days. What a great way to end the conference with my PhD students being recognised for the quality of their contributions to the program.

Diane Jacobs (SPA conference chair), Jessica Andrianakis (best poster), Sarah Verdon (best paper), Sharynne McLeod (on behalf of Sarah Masso, best poster)

Assessing children's speech in the Asia Pacific region

The final session of the Speech Pathology Australia National Convention addressed the speech of children with cultural and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The papers provided a good overview of assessment issues within the Asia Pacific region. Here is the program:

• Intelligibility in Context Scale: Translation, validation, and norming of a parent-report screening tool
  Sharynne McLeod - Charles Sturt University, Australia 
• Are parents accurate in judging their bilingual children's speech accuracy?
  Jae-Hyun Kim, Elaine Ballard, Clare McCann - The University of Auckland, New Zealand 
• Multilingual Fiji: A comparison of Bauan Fijian, Fiji Hindi, and Fiji English
  Suzanne Hopf and Sharynne McLeod - Charles Sturt University, Australia 
• Exploring diagnostic markers for speech sound disorders in Mandarin-English bilingual children
  Taiying Lee and Elaine Ballard - The University of Auckland and Ministry of Education, New Zealand

Sharynne, Ruth Nicholls (chair), Jae-Hyun Kim, Taiying Lee, and Suzanne Hopf

Outcomes and predictors in preschoolers with speech-language and/or developmental mobility impairments

The following manuscript has been accepted for publication today
Washington, K., Thomas-Stonell, N., McLeod, S., & Warr-Leeper, G., (2014, in press May). Outcomes and predictorsin preschoolers with speech-language and/or developmental mobility impairments. Child Language Teaching and Therapy.

Here is the abstract

Purpose: Describe communicative-participation outcomes measured by the Focus on the Outcomes of Communication Under Six (FOCUS_©; Thomas-Stonell et al. 2013) for interventions provided by SLPs in different community settings for preschoolers with speech-language impairments (Sp/LI) with and without developmental mobility impairments (MI). The predictive relationships between communicative-participation and: a) functioning-and-disability, and b) contextual factors, was also investigated.

Method: Sixty-one preschoolers with Sp/LI and their parents participated. Twenty-six preschoolers were identified with Sp/LI and received speech-language interventions (Group 1), 20 preschoolers were identified with Sp/LI and MI and received speech-language interventions (Group 2), and 15 preschoolers with Sp/LI awaiting intervention served as waitlist-controls (Group 3). Parents completed structured interviews about children’s communicative-participation outcomes using the FOCUS_© at three time-points (pre-intervention; post-intervention; and 3-months post-intervention) with a speech-language pathologist.

Results: Only Groups 1 and 2 experienced statistically and clinically meaningful communicative-participation outcomes over time as measured by the FOCUS_©. Pre- to post-intervention communicative-participation was predicted by functioning-and-disability and contextual factors, initial social skills and intervention status, respectively. Post-intervention to 3-month post-intervention scores were also predicted by functioning-and-disability and contextual factors, risk status (Sp/LI only, Sp/LI+developmental MI) and intervention status, respectively.

Conclusion: Significant and clinically meaningful changes in communicative-participation over time are associated with speech-language interventions for preschoolers with Sp/LI.

Visiting Oxford University Press

Today Jane McCormack and I visited Oxford University Press in Melbourne to discuss our forthcoming edited book: Introduction to Speech, Language and Literacy. Four chapters are out for review, most of the other chapters are currently being revised, and the case study videos have been completed. The book is aimed at Australian educators, speech pathologists, and linguists and includes authors from each of these fields.

Debra James, Sharynne, Jane McCormack, Katie Ridsdale, Lachie, and Sam Bonwick

Congratulations and welcome Ben

Pham Thi Ben has just received an Australian Award (previously AusAid Award) to undertake her PhD at Charles Sturt University. Ben currently lives in Ha Noi, Vietnam and will be moving to live in Bathurst to undertake her studies. The scholarship is very prestigious and she is the first from Vietnam to be awarded this scholarship to study in the field of speech pathology/education. She will be working with Associate Professor Jane McCormack and myself. We are looking forward to Ben's arrival and to working with her to conduct research into Vietnamese children's speech acquisition.

Ben receiving her scholarship from the Australian Ambassador to Vietnam

Speech-language pathologists’ practices regarding assessment, analysis, target selection and intervention for children with speech sound disorders

The following manuscript has just been accepted for publication:

McLeod, S. & Baker, E. (2014, in press May). Speech-language pathologists’ practices regarding assessment, analysis, target selection and intervention for children with speech sound disorders. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics.

Here is the abstract

A survey of 231 Australian speech-language pathologists (SLPs) was undertaken to describe practices regarding assessment, analysis, target selection, intervention and service delivery for children with speech sound disorders (SSD). The participants typically worked in private practice, education, or community health settings and 67.6% had a waiting list for services. For each child, most SLPs spent 10-40 minutes in pre-assessment activities, 30-60 minutes undertaking face-to-face assessments and 30-60 minutes completing paperwork after assessments. During an assessment SLPs typically conducted a parent interview, single word speech sampling (most commonly using the Articulation Survey), collected a connected speech sample, and used informal tests. They also determined children’s stimulability and estimated intelligibility. With multilingual children, informal assessment procedures and English-only tests were commonly used and SLPs relied on family members or interpreters to assist. Common analysis techniques included determination of phonological processes, substitutions-omissions-distortions-additions (SODA), and phonetic inventory. Participants placed high priority on selecting target sounds that were stimulable, early developing, and in error across all word positions and 60.3% felt very confident or confident selecting an appropriate intervention approach. Eight intervention approaches were frequently used: auditory discrimination, minimal pairs, cued articulation, phonological awareness, traditional articulation therapy, auditory bombardment, Nuffield Centre Dyspraxia Programme, and core vocabulary. Children typically received individual therapy with an SLP in a clinic setting. Parents often observed and participated in sessions and SLPs typically included siblings and grandparents in intervention sessions. Parent training and home programs were more frequently used than group therapy. Two-thirds kept up-to-date by reading journal articles monthly or every 6 months. There were many similarities with previously reported practices for children with SSD in the US, UK, and the Netherlands, with some (but not all) practices aligning with current research evidence.

Speech Pathology Australia National Conference

The Speech Pathology Australia National Conference is being held in Melbourne this week. Here are the presentations being made by my PhD students and myself:

• Hopf, S. C. & McLeod, S. (2014, May). Multilingual Fiji: A comparison of Bauan Fijian, Fiji Hindi and Fiji English.
• Masso, S., Baker, E., McLeod, S., & McCormack, J. (2014, May). Assessment of phonological awareness in children with speech sound disorders: A systematic overview. Poster.
• McLeod, S. (2014, May). Intelligibility in Context Scale: Translation, validation, and norming of a parent-report screening tool.
• Verdon, S., McLeod, S., & Winsler, A. (2014, May). Language diversity, maintenance, and loss: A population study of young Australian children. 
• Verdon, S. & McLeod, S. (2014, May). Intergenerational exchange and maintenance of language among Australian Indigenous children. 



Suzanne Hopf's presentation

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  Jo Wood (SPA), Dr Anna Copley (UQ), Sharynne celebrating the International Communication Project

  
  

  

  Diane Jacobs (ACU), Prof Sue Roulstone (UWE), Nicole Limbrick, Sharynne (CSU)

  

  Sarah Masso's poster presentation