Anna attends the Churchill Medallion Dinner

On 28th July, Anna Cronin was an invited guest at the 2017 Medallion Dinner held by the Churchill Fellows Association of NSW. Fifteen fellows were presented with a medallion to celebrate the completion of their Churchill Fellowship. Congratulations Anna! The details of Anna's Churchill Fellowship are https://www.churchilltrust.com.au/project/to-investigate-the-optimal-management-of-speech-problems-in-toddlers-with-cleft-palate/.

Beautiful Fiji

As well as the beautiful people described in my earlier blog posts - Fiji is also a beautiful place.

Visiting Suzanne in Fiji

Over the past few days I have been vising Suzanne Hopf and her family in Fiji. It has been a pleasure to spend time with them - and to reflect on all she accomplished during her PhD. Suzanne was working on her paper based on Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and recorded this video (here). This photo includes the symbol of communication in Fiji - the conch (trition) shell.

Suzanne and Sharynne in Fiji

Volunteering in the Yasawa Islands of Fiji

Over the past 2 weeks, my daughter and I took leave to volunteer at a school and preschool in the Yasawa Islands of Fiji. We joined a team from Australia who were building a playground at Namara Village School (see here). It was a fantastic opportunity to apply some of the knowledge I have gained from Suzanne Hopf's PhD studies about Fijian children's communication. We loved our time with the children and teachers. The children loved the playground, crafts, stories and activities. A video about our experience is here.

Sharynne singing with the Kindergarten children

Sharynne about to show the school children how to throw frisbees

The opening of the playground

Photographs have been used with permission.

Presentation to the Utrecht Summer School

Tonight I gave a presentation to students at the Utrecht Summer School in The Netherlands via Skype. The presentation was titled "Introduction to a cross linguistic procedure for intelligibility evaluation (ICS)". Dr Mieke Beers and Anniek van Doornik-van der Zee run the summer school each year and this year the students were from The Netherlands, Austria, United States, Kazakhstan, the Philippines and China. They were very attentive and asked excellent questions. It was a pleasure to speak to these future speech-language pathologists from around the world.

Fulbright Fellowship Lecture at CSU by Dr Kate Crowe

Dr Kate Crowe has just returned from the US following her Fulbright Fellowship. She has been a PhD student, postdoctoral scholar, and sessional lecturer at Charles Sturt University (CSU) over a number of years.

Today Kate presented a lecture to CSU titled:
Why potatoes aren’t vegetables: Things I’ve learnt from my Fulbright Fellowship 
Participants attended in person in Bathurst, and via video conference from Albury, Shepparton, Newcastle, Blue Mountains, and other parts of the state.

Head of School Carol Burgess presenting Dr Kate Crowe with
a gift from CSU to congratulate her on her Fulbright Fellowship

Here is the abstract of her presentation

Dr Kate Crowe left Charles Sturt University in August 2016 to become a Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholar at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester Institute of Technology (NY). The Fulbright program is the flagship international educational exchange program of the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. After spending nearly a year immersed in U.S. culture, Kate has returned to share her experiences of life and research. In this talk she will describe the research she has conducted to better understand how students with hearing loss process language and how the Fulbright program encourages collaborative research and understanding. She will also share stories about creating cultural bridges, and what happens when these bridges don’t quite meet in the middle. For example, why a potato may not be a vegetable (and how this confuses your research results)? What happens to squirrels in winter? What exactly is a cheesehead?

Kate is an Adjunct Research Fellow at Charles Sturt University (Australia) and a member of the International Expert Panel on Multilingual Children’s Speech. Kate has worked as a speech pathologist, academic, and researcher in a range of early childhood, school, and tertiary settings. Her research and clinical interests include communication choice and development for children with hearing loss, particularly children who use sign, live in multilingual environments, and/or have complex communication needs. Kate currently works with college-aged students who are deaf and is exploring linguistic and cognitive factors which inform how we teach deaf learners.

Cluster randomized controlled trial evaluating the effectiveness of computer-assisted intervention

The latest Sound Start Study article has just been published:

McLeod, S., Baker, E., McCormack, J., Wren, Y., Roulstone, S. Crowe, K., Masso, S., White, P., & Howland, C. (2017). Cluster randomized controlled trial evaluating the effectiveness of computer-assisted intervention delivered by educators for children with speech sound disorders. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. Advance online publication doi:10.1044/2017_JSLHR-S-16-0385 http://jslhr.pubs.asha.org/article.aspx?articleid=2643351

Members of the Sound Start Study Team (+Yvonne Wren and Paul White)

Here are the details of our other Sound Start Study publications: 

Crowe, K., Cumming, T., McCormack, J., Baker, E., McLeod, S., Wren, Y., Roulstone, S., & Masso, S. (2017, in press). Educators’ perspectives on facilitating computer-assisted speech intervention in early childhood settings. Child Language Teaching and Therapy. doi:10.1177/0265659017717437

Masso, S., Baker, E., McLeod, S., & Wang, C. (2017). Polysyllable speech accuracy and predictors of later literacy development in preschool children with speech sound disorders. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. Advance online publication doi:10.1044/2017_JSLHR-S-16-0171 http://jslhr.pubs.asha.org/article.aspx?articleid=2639744

Masso, S., McLeod, S., Baker, E., & McCormack, J. (2016). Polysyllable productions in preschool children with speech sound disorders: Error categories and the Framework of Polysyllable Maturity. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 18(3), 272-287. doi:10.3109/17549507.2016.1168483 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/17549507.2016.1168483?journalCode=iasl20

Masso, S., McLeod, S., Wang, A. & Baker, E., & McCormack, J. (2017). Longitudinal changes in polysyllable maturity of preschool children with speech sound disorders. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 31(6), 424-439. doi:10.1080/02699206.2017.1305450
http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/hnFtnIR6iTvXn4IQNAV5/full

McCormack, J., Baker, E., Crowe, K., Masso, S., McLeod, S., Wren, Y., & Roulstone, S. (2017). Implementation fidelity of a computer-assisted intervention for children with speech sound disorders. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 19(3), 265-276. doi:10.1080/17549507.2017.1293160
http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/JjWu9TGPwWahCX53IuMM/full

McLeod, S., Crowe, K., & Shahaeian, A. (2015). Intelligibility in Context Scale: Normative and validation data for English-speaking preschoolers. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 46(3), 266-276. doi:10.1044/2015_LSHSS-14-0120 http://lshss.pubs.asha.org/article.aspx?articleid=2290674

McLeod, S., Crowe, K., Masso, S., Baker, E., McCormack, J., Wren, Y., Roulstone, S., & Howland, C. (2017). Profile of Australian preschoolers with speech sound disorders at risk for literacy difficulties. Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties. Advance online publication doi:10.1080/19404158.2017.1287105 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19404158.2017.1287105?journalCode=rald20

McLeod, S., Crowe, K., McCormack, J., White, P., Wren, Y., Baker, E., Masso, S., Roulstone, S. (2017). Preschool children’s communication, motor and social development: What concerns parents and educators? International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Advance online publication doi:10.1080/17549507.2017.1309065 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17549507.2017.1309065?journalCode=iasl20

Wren, Y., McCormack, J., Masso, S., McLeod, S., Baker, E. & Crowe, K. (2016, in press). Digital tools to support children’s speech and language skill. In S. Danby, M. Fleer, C. Davidson & M. Hatzigianni (Eds). Digital childhoods: Technologies in children’s everyday lives. Dordrecht, Germany: Springer.

Dr Sarah Verdon's CSU postdoc begins

Today Dr Sarah Verdon begins a 3-year Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in the Faculty of Science at Charles Sturt University. She was one of 5 people across all fields of science to receive this position (166 people applied!). Congratulations Sarah - we look forward to seeing (and using) the research that you generate from this postdoc.