We are very proud that our paper is one of the first to be online in the journal Advances in Communication and Swallowing and look forward to their publication of their first issue:
McGill, N., McLeod, S., & Hopf, S. C. (2021). Waiting list management: Professionals’ perspectives and innovations. Advances in Communication and Swallowing, Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.3233/ACS-210026
Dr Sarah Verdon, Dr Van Tran and I presented the second of three Allied Health Telehealth Virtual Education Sessions today (31 August 2021) - titled "Communicating with children and families in a multilingual world"
Registrations closed with more than 85 health professionals from 54 NSW Health facilities registered to attend. "This has again proven to be a very popular topic!" (Jen Nicols)
Here is some of the feedback written in the online chat that was sent to us from Jen Nichols at NSW Health
Today we had another meeting to continue working on the SPA Practice Guideline (Domain 3) to support work with multilingual and multicultural people. It is coming together well.
Grace Kelly is doing a fantastic job with data recruitment and assessing potential participants in our Say Bananas research:
Thanks Grace!
You can see what the app looks like on this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Unh1uKJWwA&t=5s
Here's the link to participate in the research: https://www.research.net/r/SayBananas
I am currently reading a draft research document - and was reminded of the difficulties in the field when trying to audio- and video-record young children's speech so that reliable speech transcription can be made and accurate data entry can be assured:
"The speech sample collection was not carried out if the assessment room had too much noise such as drilling machines, saws, wall demolition, continuous honking, etc. in the surrounding area."
It reminded me of conducting speech assessments in Vietnam in a room that was next to the parking area for parents' and teachers' motorbikes. We kept having to stop as people came and went.
This morning I was interviewed by ASHA so that they can create a video to play during the ASHA Awards Ceremony in Washington D.C. in November.
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| Will, Sharynne and Gina Olwoch (ASHA) recording the interview |
At the end of the interview, Will stated the following 5 words to describe me: "energetic - bright - kind - humble - passionate"
Happy Speech Pathology Week! In this week’s episode, SPA’s Anneke Flinn explores this year’s Speech Pathology Week theme, “Communication is everyone’s right” with Professor Sharynne McLeod, from Charles Sturt University. Sharynne would like to extend her gratitude to Gail Mulcair (SPA CEO), Gaenor Dixon (2019 SPA President), Belinda Hill (2019 SPA Vice President) and Jess McLeod for sharing her UN journey. To view the Speech Pathology Australia “Speak Up for Communication Rights” page referred to in this episode. Speech Pathology Australia acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of lands, seas and waters throughout Australia, and pay respect to Elders past, present and future. We recognise that the health and social and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are grounded in continued connection to culture, country, language and community.
Here is a link to the podcast: https://soundcloud.com/speechpathologyaustralia/communication-is-everyones-right-s03-e31
The President of Speech Pathology Australia sent the following email:
Hi Sharynne and Anneke, Thank you for a great commute home today. The SpeakUp podcast for SPweek was excellent. Both a celebration of the work we do, and a galvanising call for activities during the week. Nicely done! Best wishes Tim.
It was really lovely to catch up with Dr Sarah Masso in Germany this week. She is working on her Humbolt Fellowship with Dr Annette Fox-Boyer.
We are currently analysing the data from our VietSpeech SuperSpeech program. Audrey is such a fantastic statistician. It's great to be able to share SPSS over zoom!
Charles Sturt University published the following media release after interviewing Dr Sarah Verdon: https://news.csu.edu.au/opinion/for-children-with-communication-disorders,-parents-and-educators-are-the-first-responders
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| Happy Speech Pathology Week from the ASHA President, Lynn Williams |
Today I received this email:
Contributions have been given to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation by:
- Karen Beverly-Ducker
- Julie Masterson
- Sharon Moss
- Tommie L. Robinson, Jr.
- Nancy Swigert
in recognition of your receiving Honors of the Association.
Thank you to each of the donors - I know that the ASHFoundation will use this money well.
The following book chapter was just accepted for publication:
Supporting the communication of underserved children in Viet Nam
Ben Phạm, Sharynne McLeod, Sarah Verdon, Kate Margetson, and Van H. Tran
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a case study of work undertaken in Viet Nam to support underserved children with communication disabilities. This chapter focusses on collaborations between Viet Nam, Australia, and other countries to support children with communication disorders and to nurture the developing speech and language therapy profession in Viet Nam. The chapter also profiles research and initiatives that have focussed on understanding children’s speech and language acquisition to develop culturally and linguistically appropriate assessments and resources to support intervention. Childhood communication disorders include difficulties with speech, language, hearing, communication and/or literacy.
The title of the book is: Improving Care for Marginalized and Underserved Populations with Communication Disorders and the International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders (IALP) is currently finalising the publisher.
Here are the 21 most spoken languages in the world in 2021 according to Ethnologue
The Ethnologue 200 accounts for most of the world's population. Over 88% of people speak one of these languages as their native tongue, and many hundreds of millions more speak them as second languages. This ranking accounts for both, showing the total usage worldwide. https://www.ethnologue.com/guides/ethnologue200
Eberhard, D. M., Simons, G. F., & Fennig, C. D. (2021). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (24th ed.). SIL International. http://www.ethnologue.com
Today we welcomed Dr Van Tran as a CSU staff member and postdoc in the VietSpeech ARC Discovery Grant titled "Vietnamese-Australian children's speech and language competence" (DP180102848). Van submitted her second PhD last week - so now she can be employed to assist us to finalise the journal articles and research translation for our VietSpeech grant. Welcome Van to your new role.
Van joins the VietSpeech team:
Today Dr Van Tran submitted her second PhD. Her thesis is titled: “Home language maintenance among Vietnamese-Australian families”. It was submitted as four journal articles and an exegesis. Her PhD scholarship was from Charles Sturt University and she was part
of our Australian Research Council Discovery Grant: VietSpeech
(DP180102848).
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| Congratulations Van from around the world! |
Home language maintenance is of importance in culturally and linguistically diverse societies including Australia, where more than 300 languages are spoken and over one-fifth of the population speak a language other than English at home. While home language maintenance is associated with academic, social, cultural, and economic benefits for both individuals and societies, it can be a challenge for multilingual families due to child, parent, community, and society level factors.
Underpinned by Spolsky’s language policy theory, which comprises language practices, language ideologies, and language management, the purpose of this mixed methods research is to explore home language maintenance among Vietnamese-Australian families. To achieve this purpose, this study aims to explore how factors related to demographics, language practices, language ideologies, and language management are associated with: (1) Vietnamese-Australian children’s proficiency and use in Vietnamese and English, (2) Vietnamese-Australian parents’ language use with their child and in social situations and their attitudes towards home language maintenance, and (3) Vietnamese-Australian parents having language policies. Additionally, it aims to: (4) describe Vietnamese-Australian families’ language policies in relation to home language maintenance, and (5) explore successful experience of home language maintenance among Vietnamese-Australian families.
To achieve these aims, data were collected from a questionnaire completed by 151 Vietnamese-Australian families and a focus group discussion with seven parents from five families. All the families had children under 18 years of age. Survey data were analysed using Pearson’s correlation, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and multiple regression models. An inductive thematic analysis using NVivo was applied to the focus group discussion to explore successful home language maintenance.
The results from these analyses were presented in three published papers and one submitted paper. The first paper highlights that children’s home language maintenance does not negatively impact English proficiency and is significantly dependent on parents’ language use and attitudes towards home language maintenance. The second paper indicates that parents’ language use with their children is positively linked to their language use in social situations. This in turn is higher when parents are younger, have higher Vietnamese and lower English proficiency, and attend community events more frequently. Parents’ attitudes towards home language maintenance correlate with their perceptions of cultural identity, beliefs in the importance of English maintenance and in the benefits of home language maintenance, and their age. The third paper highlights that only a third of the families had a family language policy. Having a family language policy is associated with parents’ Vietnamese proficiency, parents’ language use with children, and their intention of future residence in Vietnam. The fourth paper concludes with an in-depth investigation of families’ successful experiences of home language maintenance. It presents parents’ motivations, challenges, practices and strategies, and recommendations for support in home language maintenance.
This PhD research found that home language maintenance is dependent on parents’ efforts including persistent language input, positive attitudes towards home language maintenance, and consistent reinforcement of a family language policy. The research also highlights parents’ desire for the inclusion of home language maintenance in formal education. This research is expected to raise public awareness of the importance of home language maintenance, promote multilingualism, and support multilingual families in Australia and around the world.
The following papers are in Van's PhD
Here are other publications she has co-authored during her PhD (more to come)
Recently I received this email from Felicity Conlan, a speech pathologist from Penleigh and Essendon Granmar School in Melbourne (@speechforthestars). She gave me permission to share it on my blog.
I just had a listen to the 'up and coming speechies' podcast and wow, you are an amazing woman! I particularly LOVED hearing about everything you do for the multilingual community. I come from a monolingual family...but I have a degree in French and Indonesian...my dream was to become an interpreter, but I was intimidated by the profession and thought I could never sound like a native! So then, I decided to study speech pathology. Foreign languages and speech are DEFINITELY linked, and what important knowledge to have as a speechie. I REALLY loved how you called being multilingual as having a 'superpower', such a cool way of putting it...and will definitely be using that term with my ESL students đŸ™‚ Kind Regards, Felicity Conlan
Mutilingualism is a superpower videos from CSU: https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2021/08/multilingual-childrens-speech-social.html
A/Prof Deb Clarke, Vice President of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA) outlined the relevance of HERDSA to all academics in Australia: https://www.herdsa.org.au/
I am very proud of Van and Hang who have recently submitted a draft of their whole thesis. It is such a pleasure to co-supervise these students with Dr Ben Pham from Ha Noi National University of Education.
22-28 August is Speech Pathology Week 2021. The theme is Communication is everyone's right. https://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/SPAweb/whats_on/Speech_Pathology_Week
"Speech pathologists work to ensure everyone can communicate with confidence. It is important that the broader community understands that:
- communication is a basic human right;
- 1.2 million Australians live with communication disability;
- communication disability is largely invisible. Unseen and out-of-sight;
- confident communication helps maximise educational, health and social outcomes; and
- communication is more than just speech. "
We have just learned that we have been successful in being awarded a Sturt Scheme funding. Here is the title and summary of our project:
Education Research Acceleration Program
The Education Research Acceleration (ERA) Program presents a
transformative educational research program. This program builds on the
existing strength of education research at the University.
Here are the other successful Sturt Scheme applications.
The following paper was accepted for publication today. It is the final paper to be accepted from Dr Nicole's PhD:
McGill, N., McLeod, S., & Hopf, S. C. (2021, in press August). Waiting list management: Professionals’ perspectives and innovations. Advances in Communication and Swallowing.
Here is the abstract:
BACKGROUND: Waiting lists for speech and language therapy exist when services do not meet demand. Waiting lists pose practical and ethical challenges for speech and language therapists (SLTs) and workplaces to manage, with potential flow on effects for children and families.
OBJECTIVE: The present study aimed to describe SLTs’ perspectives about waiting lists for children with speech, language, and communication needs (SLCN) and explore waiting list management strategies.
METHODS: The present study reports on 187 SLTs’ written responses to open-ended questions in a questionnaire. SLTs were from nine countries, had an average of 12 years’ experience in the profession (range 0.2-45 years), and either currently or had previously worked with children. Data were analysed qualitatively using thematic analysis.
RESULTS: SLTs’ feelings about their waiting lists centred on three themes: (1) negative (e.g., “overwhelmed”, “stressed”, “anxious”, “embarrassed”); (2) neutral (e.g., “not too bad”, “okay”); and (3) positive (e.g., “manageable”, “proud”). Four themes related to waiting list management: (1) SLT service delivery (e.g., triage, use of technology in service provision); (2) workplace processes and policies (e.g., eligibility criteria, prioritisation); (3) SLT workforce actions (e.g., recruitment and retention of skilled SLTs); and (4) inaction (e.g., waiting list management was “out of my hands”).
CONCLUSIONS: Waiting lists can have negative consequences and many SLTs take action to manage waiting lists; however, waiting list management strategies are not necessarily effective which can impact children’s outcomes. There is a need to reimagine service delivery and identify effective actions for managing speech and language therapy waiting lists at a local and systemic level in order to optimise outcomes for children and families.
Dr Carol Kit Sum To and I have continued having regular meetings to work on writing up our grant to document a natural history study of children with speech sound disorders who do not receive speech-language pathology intervention in Hong Kong, SAR China. We are almost ready to submit the manuscript to be considered for publication. Here is a blog post about a meeting we held earlier this year: https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2021/04/investigating-prognosis-and-risk.html
Last year CSU social created Mutilingual Children's Speech videos for us to share. The message was "multilingualism is a superpower"
I have continued to share them in my recent workshops and keynotes. Here are the links:
This is Van's last week of her PhD. It is an exciting time. Best wishes Van.
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| Van's last official PhD meeting with Dr Audrey Wang |
Here is the abstract and aims:
Over 22% of Australia’s population speak a language other than English at home; whereas, most Australian speech pathologists speak English as their first language. Recently, Australian research has been published to provide practical guidance for speech pathologists to assess multilingual children’s speech. It is recommended that children’s speech be assessed in all languages spoken by the client (International Expert Panel on Multilingual Children’s Speech, 2012). This presentation will demonstrate that all speech pathologists have skills and access to resources (online, interpreters, family, community) that enable them to consider the culture and the linguistic competency of multilingual children on their caseloads.
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- Discuss recent evidence-based international speech acquisition data regarding consonant acquisition and intelligibility.
- Source free evidence-based resources regarding speech acquisition and speech assessments created by researchers from across the world in 60+ languages and consider potential applications to their SLP practice https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech
- Draw on four types of evidence when working with multilingual children and their families: (1) Research evidence (2) Clinical expertise of the speech pathologist (3) Client preferences, values, and circumstances (4) Practice context relating to the setting and client (Hoffman et al., 2013).
Here are some of the resources that we shared
Here is a series of emails I received over the past few days from Jeanene M. Johnson, M.A. CCC-SLP, a speech-language pathologist (SLP) in Texas (she gave consent for me to share her name). I regularly receive emails like this (but am usually able to be more helpful). I love that we can hear from people who are using our work
Email 1:
I am a huge fan of your work! Can you please tell me if you have updated pictures in the Single Word Test of Consonant Clusters or if you have published a test that uses this test? I have been using your test and would like an updated version if it is possible. Your work is amazing!
SM response:
Thank you so much for your lovely email! Unfortunately I haven’t updated my Single Word Test of Consonant Clusters pictures and I haven’t published a test that uses it. I’m glad to hear that it is useful. I often use Pixabay to select new pictures for the work I am doing, but at the moment don’t have time to select updated pictures.
Email 2:
Thank you Sharyne! Your work is legendary and it should be! Keep publishing ! You are a true scientist in our field!; Don’t retiree….; You inspire us! Thank you for taking the time to answer my question. I am just an average private practitioner.
SM response:
Thanks so much for your lovely email that has brightened the start to my week!You are exactly the person we do our work for – someone who translates our research into changing children’s lives. Thank you for your important work!
