Ethical approval for NSW Translational Research Health Grant

This week we have received the final ethical approval in order to undertake our NSW Health Translational Research Grant about waiting for speech pathology. We have had to submit extensive applications (that were different in each case) to Charles Sturt University, NSW Health, and Health Victoria. Hooray - the research now can begin across all of our research sites.

PhD students for 2018

Semester 1, 2018 begins today - and it is going to be a productive year.
Here are my Charles Sturt University PhD students for 2018:

1. Ben Phạm co-supervised by Prof Linda Harrison – to submit mid 2018 
2. Helen Blake co-supervised by Dr Sarah Verdon – to submit mid 2018 
3. Anna Cronin co-supervised by Dr Sarah Verdon – to undertake data collection and writing in 2018 
4. Nicole McGill co-supervised by Dr Kate Crowe – to undertake data collection and writing in 2018 
5. Van Tran co-supervised by Dr Sarah Verdon – to begin in 2018

Here are my PhD students that I am co-supervising at other universities

1. Anniek van Doornik-van der Zee supervised by Prof Ellen Gerrits - Utrecht University, The Netherlands
2. Natalie Hegarty supervised by Dr Jill Titterington - Ulster University, Northern Ireland

Here four of my most recent PhD graduates and their post-PhD roles:

1. Dr Suzanne Hopf - Lecturer, School of Community Health, Charles Sturt University
2. Dr Sarah Masso -Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Communication Sciences and Disorders, The University of Sydney 
3. Dr Sarah Verdon - Research Fellow, School of Community Health, Charles Sturt University
4. Dr Kate Crowe - Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholar, National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, USA

I am privileged to work with such inspirational women who are working to support communicative participation of children and adults throughout the world.

Sharynne, Nicole, Ben, Anna, Helen, Sarah M, Sarah V, Suzanne
at the Speech Pathology Australia National Conference in May 2017

Special issue of IJSLP celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights published TODAY

The special issue of the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was published TODAY as Volume 20, issue 1, 2018. It contains 31 papers that are available as open access (for free) and can be accessed via either of these links http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/iasl20/20/1 bit.ly/IJSLP-UDHR 

The CSU news release is here: http://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/education/teacher-education/communication-is-a-human-right

We celebrated the launch today at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/communication-is-a-human-right-celebrating-the-70th-anniversary-of-the-universal-declaration-of-tickets-42303600207

Additional presentations have been/are being planned in Sydney, Albury, Adelaide, Bathurst, Malta, New York and Boston.

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. (Article 19, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations, 1948) 

There has been a lot of attention on Twitter throughout the day: #SpeakUp4CommRights @IJSLP @SpPathAust @UNHumanRights #StandUp4HumanRights

Invited lecture at Queensland University of Technology

Today I presented a lecture at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane in an event titled "Communication is a human right: Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights". The event was co-hosted by the Faculty of Education’s Childhood in Changing Contexts (CCC) and the Student Engagement, Learning & Behaviour (#SELB) research groups and the details are here. The special issue was published this morning - so the event marked the launch of the 31 free articles focusing on Article 19 available here: http://bit.ly/IJSLP-UDHR

Here is a description and program from today

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 19 of the UDHR supports communication as a human right and states "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
The International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology has joined the world in celebrating this milestone by publishing a special issue titled: "Communication is a human right: Celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights", guest edited by Professor Sharynne McLeod.
Professor McLeod will discuss the special issue and the right to communication. Her presentation will be followed by presentations by the authors of two papers published in the upcoming special issue, Dr Jenna Gillett-Swan and Ms Haley Tancredi.

• Communication rights: Fundamental human rights for all - Sharynne McLeod
• Assuring children’s human right to freedom of opinion and expression in education - Jenna Gillett-Swan & Jonathon Sargeant
• Advancing the human rights of children with communication needs in school - A.L. Gallagher, Haley Tancredi, Linda J. Graham

QUT's facebook post abou the event is here: https://www.facebook.com/QUTEducation/posts/1509327996035226

Jenna Gillett-Swan, Sue Walker, Linda Graham, Haley Tancredi, Sharynne McLeod

Some of the attendees at the UDHR event @QUT

Visiting QUT

This week I have been visiting Queensland University of Technology. There are many wonderful people who work in the School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education, so it has been great to catch up with many of them. The main purpose of my visit was to present an invited lecture on Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; however, I also mentored future ARC grant applicants, met with Anna Cronin my CSU PhD student, and celebrated submitting an ARC grant application with Dr Kate Williams.

Sharynne and Dr Kate Williams after our ARC Discovery grant submission

Happy International Mother Language Day

Happy International Mother Language Day (21st February). I have encouraged my team to take time today to read this wonderful paper titled "Mother tongue as a universal human right" that contains Shetlandic poetry by Christine De Luca, Edinburgh Makar (poet laureate) for the City of Edinburgh (2014-2017). Her inspiring paper will soon be officially published as part of our Universal Declaration of Human Rights special issue of International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology.

ASHA selects our tutorial for inclusion in a self-study package

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association is developing a self-study product about assessment considerations for speech sound disorders and our article, “Tutorial: Assessment and Analysis of Polysyllables in Young Children,” has been selected for inclusion.

Lunar New Year - Tết

Chúc mừng năm mới
Best wishes for the new year

Ben Pham with Lunar New Year gifts

Enjoying time with my PhD students

Both Ben Pham and Helen Blake plan to submit their PhDs this year. We had a lovely opportunity to meet at the beach this week, enjoy each other's company, chat about their research and future plans.

Ben Pham, Sharynne, Helen Blake

Summer snow

I am co-supervising Natalie Hegarty's PhD with Dr Jill Titterington. Natalie is studying in Northern Ireland at Ulster University and we meet via email then meet via Skype every few months. We met on Friday night (my time) to discuss her latest work. It was very warm in Australia, yet I was watching snow falling outside of Natalie's window. Natalie is working hard - and is planning to submit her PhD in September.

Dr Jill Titterington and Natalie Hegarty

Children draw talking in Jamaica

This morning I met with Dr. Karla Washington and her team of very enthusiastic students from the University of Cincinnati to discuss their analysis of 231 Jamaican children's drawings of talking. The data are very interesting and mirror some of our findings from Australia. They are about to head to Jamaica to collect more data soon.

Rachel Wright, Kylee Loebick, Corrine Deutenberg, and Dr. Karla Washington

Waiting for Speech Pathology research underway

This week we finished the Waiting for Speech Pathology website and are ready for the first participants to be assessed for the randomised controlled trial beginning next week. We spent time going over data collection, storage, labeling, randomisation protocols, and the CONSORT statement guidelines (http://www.consort-statement.org) to make sure we were on track.

Sharynne and Katrina checking the CONSORT statement guidelines

Grant submitted

Today we submitted another ARC Discovery grant application seeking to assess very young children's development, learning and wellbeing in early childhood education programs. It has been an amazing team effort with Prof Linda Harrison, A/Prof Sandie Wong, Dr Kate Williams, Dr Sheena Elwick, Prof Magdalena Janus (Canada), and Dr Wendy Alexander. The only sad part about the process is that last year there was an 18% success rate - which means many good projects go unfunded. We will learn about this application late in 2018.