September 30, 2019

Wiradjuri pronunciation

Charles Sturt University has a video to support staff and students to pronounce key Wiradjuri words:
https://youtu.be/dtPiWxU5l6o
https://about.csu.edu.au/community/events/naidoc-week
Charles Sturt University acknowledges the culture and insight of Indigenous Australians through our ethos which is clearly described by the Wiradjuri phrase ‘Yindyamarra Winhanganha’. This phrase means 'the wisdom of respectfully knowing how to live well in a world worth living in'.
Other useful resources

September 28, 2019

Preparing for the ASHA convention in November

The next American Speech-Language-Hearing Association convention will held in Orlando, FL in November, so my colleagues and I are busily preparing our presentations.  Recently I have had a video conference with Elise Baker, Lynn Williams and Rebecca McCauley (US - Friday night; Australia - Saturday morning) and another with Kate Crowe (Iceland - Monday morning; Australia - Monday night). My other co-authors are in Australia - so the conversations don't require timezone negotiations.
Elise, Sharynne, Lynn, and Rebecca planning on Friday night (US)/
Saturday morning (Australia)
Kate Crowe (Iceland) and Sharynne (Australia)
 Here are a list of our presentations
  • Brown, Wang & McLeod - Parent-Child Book Reading Impacts Academic Achievement in Grade 3 
  • Baker, Williams, McCauley & McLeod - A Taxonomy of Phonological Intervention to Guide & Teach Clinical Decision-Making & Fidelity of Implementation 
  • McLeod & Crowe - Children’s Consonant Acquisition Across Languages 
  • Blake, McLeod & Verdon - Intelligibility Enhancement Assessment & Intervention for Multilingual University Students

September 25, 2019

World research leader in Audiology, Speech and Language Pathology

Today, The Australian published their annual list of Research Field Leaders across 258 areas. I have been named Australia's field leader in Audiology, Speech and Language Pathology and Charles Sturt University has been named the lead institution in the field.
We also won this accolade in 2018; however, this year, The Australian has run a feature story, because they also found that I was the most published and cited in the world in my field. I was named "top of the world" (p. 26) in a list with 13 other people in different fields across Australia!
Top of the world. "These Australian-based researchers are best in the world in their field based on the quality, volume and impact of their work” (The Australian Research Magazine, 25 September 2019, p. 9) https://specialreports.theaustralian.com.au/1540291/top-of-the-world/
The Australian news story is here
"Some world No 1 researchers are located in places where many would not expect to them to be. Charles Sturt University’s Sharynne McLeod is based in Bathurst, west of the Dividing Range in NSW, where she is professor of speech and language ­acquisition. Her work, and academic leadership, is of such quality that not only does she personally top Australia, and the world, in audiology, speech and language pathology research, but her university is also the lead ­research institution in Australia in this field." (The Australian, 25 September 2019, p. 26)
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/australias-researchers-are-top-of-the-world/news-story/da49e9723818fde2d28ce7a9d08f538c
The Australian Research magazine is available here: https://specialreports.theaustralian.com.au/
They indicated that "people who have taken career breaks would find it harder to perform well on the measures we’ve used" (p. 58). Being awarded "top in the world" is even more special, since last year I was unable to work for most of the year due to health issues.
“Our methodology took into account both the volume of research produced and its quality. In each field we considered all papers in the top 20 refereed journals in that particular field (which Google Scholar determines using an H-index based measure of journal impact) by researchers in Australian institutions over the past five years. Then we counted the number of citations each paper has received. The top researcher (and the top institution) in each field is the one whose papers have been cited most often.” https://specialreports.theaustralian.com.au/1540291/35/

I am very grateful to work with amazing colleagues, including the CSU team (from the Schools of Teacher Education and Community Health) who have published research in audiology and speech-language pathology over the past few years: Dr Kate Crowe, Dr Sarah Verdon, A/Prof Jane McCormack, Dr Sarah Masso, Dr Suzanne Hopf, Professor Linda Harrison, Dr Audrey Wang, Dr Graham Daniel, Dr Tamara Cumming, Dr Van Tran, Dr Ben Pham, Mrs Nicole McGill, Ms Helen Blake, Ms Anna Cronin, Dr Michelle Brown, Dr Catherine Easton, Dr Michelle Smith-Tamaray, Dr Linda Wilson, Dr Lisa Brown, and Dr Laura Hoffman.
I have also been interviewed for:
  • Radio station 2BS (28 September 2019)

September 20, 2019

Bathurst speech pathologists' dinner

Last night the Bathurst speech pathologists (+ a friendly psychologist) met together for dinner. This was the first opportunity we had to get together since Speech Pathology Week in August. It was a great night of sharing stories and catching up.

Jamaican children's speech and language

In 2013 I accompanied Dr. Karla Washington to Jamaica to support her first phase of data collection regarding children's speech and language (see blog posts here). Dr. Washington has gone from strength to strength - and recently has been awarded an NIH Grant to continue this work. Here is a news release from her university about her ongoing work and accomplishments: https://www.uc.edu/news/articles/2019/09/n20857796.html Congratulations Karla!
Dr Karla Washington and Sharynne in Jamaica in 2013

September 17, 2019

CSU Research Fellows

Dr Tamara Cumming is a CSU Research Fellow and I am a CSU Senior Reserach Fellow. This means we have 2 years quarantined to work on research and to develop the research capacity of people within our university. We have had regular meetings to discuss our research and plan capacity building - today we managed to capture a photo in Tamara's new office.
Sharynne and Dr Tamara Cumming in her new office
One of the joys of being a CSU Senior Research Fellow is the mentoring conversations I get to have with people across the university. Recently I have enjoyed dreaming big with my colleague Jenny Dwyer.
Sharynne and Jenny Dwyer in Sharynne's office

September 16, 2019

Helsinki Initiative on Multilingualism in Scholarly Communication

Why should most scholarly communication in our field be in English? I support the Helsinki Initiative on Multilingualism in Scholarly Communication https://www.helsinki-initiative.org/en/read
 
Some of our work has been published in Vietnamese as well as in English (with permission from the relevant publishers)

  • Phạm, B., McLeod, S., & Le, X. T. T. (2016). Development of the Vietnamese Speech Assessment. Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology, 18(3), 126-130. 
  •  Phạm, B., McLeod, S. & Le, X. T. T. (2018). Xây dựng bộ trắc nghiệm đánh giá lời nói Việt: Nghiên cứu định khung [Development of the Vietnamese Speech Assessment]. Ngôn ngữ [Language], 4(347), 33-45. (Vietnamese translation of Phạm, McLeod, & Le, 2016)
The Intelligibility in Context Scale is published in over 60 languages.
At the moment, most publications about its validity and norming are published in English. However, one of the first publications about the ICS was in Slovenian:
  • Kogovšek, D., & Ozbič, M. (2013). Lestvica razumljivosti govora v vsakdanjem življenju: slovenščina. Komunikacija, 2(3), 28-34.

September 13, 2019

Impromptu professional development in Balranald

Today while I was in Balranald (which is over a 7 hour drive from my home) I happened to meet Emelia Bett (the local speech pathologist) and Kellie Hodgson (her aide). We had an enjoyable time discussing some of the children that they are working with and brainstorming ideas for their speech intervention. It is so great to see speech pathology in rural schools in NSW - something that is not common in my state.
Emelia Bett, Kellie Hodgson and Sharynne


September 11, 2019

CSU kangaroos watching the football

Due to the drought in Bathurst (and lots of Australia) the kangaroos spend a lot of time close to town. There were 30+ kangaroos on the sideline of football practice at CSU when I left work on Wednesday.

A guide to speaking at the United Nations

Today I presented a seminar to the School of Teacher Education titled "A guide to speaking at the United Nations" where I listed 10 steps:
  1. Have an important message to share 
  2. Read everything you can about the United Nations 
  3. Work closely with an organisation 
  4. Attend meetings at the Australian Human Rights Commission 
  5. Submit your side event proposal and write your speech 
  6. Prepare to travel 
  7. Read pre-briefing material and write 3 minute “interventions” 
  8. Spend the week at the UN: Timetable 
  9. Present at the UN 
  10. Follow up: Australian Mission to the UN briefing, media


Congratulations Helen

This morning Helen Blake received her examiners' comments on her PhD. They are wonderful and attest to Helen's hard work!
Here is my blog post from her PhD submission:
https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2019/03/congratulations-helen-phd-submission.html

September 10, 2019

Presentation to the Research Office about my Senior Research Fellowship

Today I provided a presentation to 22 people at the Charles Sturt University Research Office about my Senior Research Fellowship. It was an honour to spend time with these people who support our team. My presentation was able to demonstrate the impact of the work we do together.

September 6, 2019

World Health Organization Rehabilitation Competency Framework review

I have been an invited by the World Health Organization to be a reviewer in a Delphi study regarding their Rehabilitation Competency Framework. It has been an honour - and fascinating process.
"The Rehabilitation Competency Framework (RCF) encompasses the competencies and activities, as well as underlying knowledge and skills required to deliver and support rehabilitation." 
"What is rehabilitation? WHO defines rehabilitation as a set of interventions designed to optimize functioning in individuals with health conditions, in interaction with their environment. A health condition may include disease, disorder, injury or trauma, as well as other circumstances such as pregnancy, ageing, stress, congenital anomaly, or genetic predisposition. Rehabilitation aims to maximizes people’s ability to live, work and learn."

Communication rights special issue of IJSLP

I just calculated that the Communication rights special issue of International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology (IJSLP) has been viewed 89,794 times and has an Altmetric score of 1,164 since it was published in 2018!
My introductory article "Communication rights: Fundamental human rights for all" has been viewed 8,261 times to date.
I have enjoyed seeing the impact of this work rippling around the world. For example, yesterday I learned that the James Cook University Speech Pathology Student Society have planned their inaugural lecture to be titled "Communication and human rights" in October.

UN statement about the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

September 4, 2019

Applying for promotion

I am a member of one of the Charles Sturt University Promotions Committees this year and have just attended a briefing about the upcoming process (along with about 20+ others). Here are a few gems that I have written down that may be useful for people applying for promotion in the future:
  • Demonstrate that you are already working at the level for which you are seeking promotion. You are not promoted because of "potential".
  • It is OK if you have had an interrupted career history (e.g., maternity leave). You need to demonstrate "merit relative to opportunity". That is, you don't need to demonstrate quantity. Demonstrate impact, rate, consistency, breadth.
  • Being busy is not grounds for promotion. Provide evidence of your achievements/impact/outcomes that have arisen out of your activity. 
  • The committee assesses the application, not the applicant. So, your "promotion narrative" really matters.

Invited book chapter about the ICF and how to use participation to guide assessment and intervention

This morning I had a videoconference with Dr Karla Washington from the University of Cincinnati, OH. We have been invited to write a book chapter titled "School-age children with communication disorders" in a new book provisionally entitled "ICF and Communication Disorders in Child-Onset Disability" edited by Mary Jo Cooley Hidecker and Travis Threats. Their book uses the framework from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) through the lifespan. Our chapter will be in section 3: How to use participation to guide assessment and intervention of communication disorders across the lifespan.

September 3, 2019

Multilingual Children's Speech website

The Multilingual Children's Speech website is still popular.
During August 2019 there were 3,450 page views (2,500 unique page views) with the following pages being most popular:
Intelligibility in Context Scale (35.5%)
Speech Assessments (15.6%)
Speech Acquisition (13.8%)
The top 10 countries were: US, Australia, UK, Canada, Netherlands, Jordan, India, Germany, Philippines, Ireland (74 countries in total).
There were 1,568 users and 1,379 new users.
Multilingual Children's Speech users during August 2019