Kate's visit to Bathurst (via the Blue Mountains)

Kate Crowe (RIPPLE Research Fellow) is visiting me in Bathurst this week. We have a very long list of tasks to accomplish, but managed to begin her visit by enjoying the scenery in the Blue Mountains.

Kate sewed an International Phonetic Alphabet sampler as a gift to me!

Anna's visit to the US during her Churchill Fellowship

Anna Cronin's Churchill Fellowship is well underway. So far she has visited New Zealand and Brazil. This week she has been in Laramie, USA visiting Dr. Mary Hardin-Jones. Next week she heads to Salt Lake City, Utah to visit Dr. Kathy Chapman. Anna has written: "So far the trip has been going really well and I feel like I'm learning so much! Every centre has been so different and people have been so generous with their time, knowledge and expertise."

Mary and Anna in Laramie

Anna at the Delicate Arch in Moab

Early Years Connect webinar

Today I presented an Early Years Connect webinar to 256 early childhood education professionals. "Early Years Connect is a professional development package which has been designed to support Queensland early childhood education and care (ECEC) educators working with children with complex additional needs. This includes children with disability, significant development delay and complex social, emotional and behavioural needs." A list of all the planned webinars is here. My webinar is here.
Here is their description of my presentation

Title: Communication strategies for children with speech, language and communication needs

Description: Every child can benefit from high-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) - if only we understand how to meet their needs. How can you support the inclusion of children with speech, language and communication needs in your early childhood education and care service? What communication strategies can you use with children to build their skills and sense of belonging?

Join Sharynne McLeod, Professor of Speech and Language Acquisition at

Charles Sturt University, to learn how to support children with speech, language and communication needs.

The webinar will explain:

*       the critical role of communication in relationships and learning

*       common communication difficulties

*       strategies for building communication skills.

This webinar is free for all staff, approved providers and governance bodies of Queensland-based ECEC services, including long day care, kindergarten, family day care and outside school hours care.

Fulbright Senior Scholar's visit to CSU

Over the past few days we have been honoured to have Professor David Lee, Fulbright Senior Scholar, and his wife Heidi visiting Charles Sturt University. His visit was supported by the School of Teacher Education and the Research Institute for Professional Practice, Learning and Education (RIPPLE). Professor Lee is a member of the faculty of the University of Miami and his Fulbright Scholarship is to The University of Sydney during 2016. 

While at CSU, Professor Lee presented a public lecture titled: Mindfulness: What is all the Fuss About? OR Medical and Public Health Applications of Mindfulness Practices. The lecture was simultaneously broadcasted to 4+ cities in Australia and Fiji. He also presented a session for people interested in applying for the Fulbright scheme, and met with Vice Chancellor Andy Vann.

Professor Lee and members of his public lecture audience

 Here are more details about his work:

Dr. Lee is a tenured Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences within the Miller School of Medicine. Currently, he is the Project Director of the Florida Cancer Data System Cancer Registry, the Co-Founder and Leader of the University of Miami Mind-Body Medical Workgroup (http://www.umindbody.org), and the Director of the Department of Public Health Sciences Graduate Programs.  Dr. Lee is also a member of the National Deafness and Other Communication Disorders Advisory Council at National Institutes of Health.  He has published book chapters and monographs, over 200 peer reviewed journal articles as well as other works and abstracts.  Dr. Lee has been involved in the mentoring of students including service on 25 dissertation committees Additionally, students are active members of his research teams contributing to the 50+ student-led publications in leading biomedical journals including the American Journal of Public Health, Preventive Medicine, Cancer, Circulation, Diabetes Care, and the American Journal of Ophthalmology. He is a chronic disease and occupational epidemiologist and has been continuously funded as Principal Investigator on various grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since 1993. Dr. Lee’s current research interests include: public health applications of mindfulness practices (e.g., yoga, meditation) for the prevention and management of chronic disease, enhancing the health of the US workforce, population approaches toward the reduction of eye disease, and cancer surveillance and prevention.

Child Language Teaching and Therapy editorial board meeting

This evening, I attended (via video conference) the Child Language Teaching and Therapy editorial board meeting held in London. Some interesting facts from the meeting included:

• The 2014 Impact Factor was 1.025, ranking the journal 44th out of 172 titles in the Linguistics JCR (Q2) and 20th out of 39 titles in the Education, Special JCR (Q3)
• The acceptance rate was 26% in 2015
• Maggie Vance is stepping down as co-editor of CLTT after 9 years of dedication to the journal
• Vicky Joffe will be the new co-editor from July 2016, joining Judy Clegg 
• The article downloads have increased from 2014 to 2015

More than words and signs: Vocabulary development and children with hearing loss

Yesterday Kate Crowe gave an online workshop titled "More than words and signs: Vocabulary development and children with hearing loss" to teachers of the deaf and speech pathologists who registered through the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC) Renwick Centre.

ASHA online conference on intelligibility

From 6-18 April the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association is hosting an online conference titled: "Improving intelligibility in children with speech sound disorders". I am one of 15 invited presenters and my pre-recorded 1-hour presentation is titled "Measuring intelligibility with different listeners: The Intelligibility in Context Scale". The attendees can download the presentations and handouts, discuss the presentations online with the attendees, and participate in live chat sessions with the presenters. There are over 600 people registered. It is going to be an exciting event.

Here is the description of my presentation

Few assessments consider children's intelligibility with different listeners. The Intelligibility in Context Scale (ICS) is a parent-report measure for considering children's intelligibility with seven different communicative partners. The ICS is available for free and has been translated into 60 languages. The tool has been normed on more than 800 English-speaking preschool-age children who were considered usually or always understood by parents, immediate family members, and teachers but only sometimes by strangers. This session will discuss use of the ICS within SLP practice and how it fits in with other methods for assessing intelligibility in children. The session will also explore the evidence underpinning the use of the ICS as an assessment tool for children who speak English or other languages.
After completing this session, you will be able to:
administer and score the ICS
explain the current and emerging evidence base supporting use of the ICS

Building a New Life in Australia (BNLA) data analysis

This week Helen Blake and I are working with Laura Bennetts Kneebone at the Department of Social Services in Canberra. We are analysing data from the Building a New Life in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Humanitarian Migrants. The first wave of the BNLA draws on data from 2399 respondents from 1509 households interviewed in 2013/14. We are considering the impact of English language proficiency on migrants’ settlement and participation in Australia. We have learned that our paper based on these data has been accepted for presentation at the Australian Institute of Family Studies conference in Melbourne in July.

Laura Bennetts Kneebone, Helen Blake, Sharynne

Congratulations Kate: MSpecEd (SD) graduation

Today Kate Crowe graduated (again!). This time she graduated with a Master of Special Education (Sensory Disabilities) from the University of Newcastle.  Her degree consisted of coursework and a thesis that was titled: Professionals’ Perspectives On Spoken Language Multilingualism For Children With Hearing Loss. Congratulations Kate (again!)!

Children's Speech is almost finished

Over the past few months Elise Baker and I have been working closely with copyeditors and typesetters to finalise our new book: Children's Speech: An Evidence-Based Approach to Assessment and Intervention. We are almost finished - this weekend we have been checking the page proofs for the references and glossary. Elise has been finalizing the learning guide, assessment questions, and Powerpoint slides to accompany the book. It will be published in June. We hope it is going to be a useful resource to SLPs throughout the world.

Here is what the backcover says:

Children's Speech distills scientific evidence from around the world on sound disorders across the areas of speech acquisition, assessment, analysis, diagnosis, and intervention, and presents it with practical knowledge to prepare speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to work with children and their families. The book is guided by two contemporary frameworks that direct the successful management of speech sound disorders in children: evidence-based practice (EBP) and the International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health—Children and Youth (ICF-CY). The foundation knowledge covers important topics including defining the population, types of speech sound disorders, anatomical structures, articulation and transcription of speech sounds, and theoretical foundations of speech and speech acquisition. Practical evidence-based knowledge is covered in chapters that mirror the stages of contact when working with children with speech sound disorders including assessment, analysis, goal setting, intervention principles and plans, intervention procedures, phonological interventions, motor speech interventions, and the conduct of EBP. The last chapter provides comprehensive clinical information for five clinical cases, including transcribed speech samples, case history information, assessment results and other real-life material. Throughout, readers are directed to complete clinical application tasks, drawing on the case-based information in this final chapter.
This First Edition:
Distills the world’s research on speech sound disorders across the areas of speech acquisition, assessment, analysis, diagnosis, and intervention.
International in scope.
Facilitates student learning with a number of valuable pedagogical aids.
Supports course teaching with a number of aids for instructors.

Here are the links to the book:

• US: https://www.pearsonhighered.com/program/Mc-Leod-Children-s-Speech-An-Evidence-Based-Approach-to-Assessment-and-Intervention/PGM241416.html
• UK: https://catalogue.pearsoned.co.uk/educator/product/Childrens-Speech-An-EvidenceBased-Approach-to-Assessment-and-Intervention/9780132755962.page

3000+ page views during March for Multilingual Children's Speech website

The Google analytic report has just arrived for the Multilingual Children's Speech website for the month of March 2016. During the month of March there were 3,115 page views (2,063 unique page views) from 67 different countries (in order):

United States, Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Hong Kong, India, Philippines, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, Italy, Denmark, New Zealand, Palestine, Malaysia, China, France, Slovenia, Taiwan, Vietnam, South Africa, Greece, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Israel, Iceland, Luxembourg, Malta, United Arab Emirates, Finland, Indonesia, Jordan, Poland, Turkey, Brazil, Czech Republic, Egypt, South Korea, Kuwait, Norway, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Thailand, Trinidad & Tobago, Austria, Brunei, Botswana, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Iraq, Japan, Kenya, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Mexico, Oman

The most popular pages were:
http://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/ics
http://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-assessments
http://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-acquisition
 

Audience (by country) accessing the Multilingual Children's Speech website in March 2016

The website continues to increase in popularity. A summary of the page views from 2014 is here.