Advances in Communication & Swallowing Editorial Board Meeting

Tonight was the Advances in Communication & Swallowing Editorial Board Meeting was held tonight (starting 9pm my time). 

The editorial board is now profiled here: https://www.iospress.com/catalog/journals/advances-in-communication-and-swallowing.

• A new type of article "Spotlight reviews" have been added. These typically are invited articles that profile a specific topic. 
• People are encouraged to sign up for the newsletter
  
• The editors are keen for more international papers to be submitted, especially papers that focus on children's speech and language.
  

CSU Sturt Scheme - Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research (ECIR)

Today, our Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research (ECIR) Sturt Scheme grant was approved. We received our original approval some months ago, but after many negotiations the process has been signed off today and we are ready to begin. 

The Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research (ECIR) Program presents a transformative research program and targets the following FoR-aligned research code: Early Childhood Systems (FoR 3903). ECIR capitalises on the existing disciplinary strengths of the Charles Sturt Early Childhood Research Group (ECRG). Using the ECRG strength as a foundation, ECIR aims to boost research performance within the School of Education through strategic interdisciplinary collaboration with colleagues from Schools of Nursing and Allied Health, Exercise and Sports Sciences. ECIR will also capitalise upon partnerships with industry, communities and the professions through innovative and impactful research, thereby establishing us as national leaders in multidisciplinary education research. 

The leadership team are: 

• Prof Sharynne McLeod - Education
• Prof Julian Grant - Nursing
• A/Prof Sarah Verdon - Speech Pathology
  
• Dr Libbey Murray - Education
  

Springer book contract - "Early Childhood Voices: Children, Families, Professionals"

I have just signed a new book contract with Springer to edit "Early Childhood Voices: Children, Families, Professionals" with my colleagues Linda Mahony, Andi Salamon and Jenny Dwyer. The book arose from our Early Childhood Voices 2020 conference and presenters from across the world have agreed to write chapters expanding on their presentations. It is going to be a great book.

Meetings - Faculty of Arts and Education Faculty Board

The Faculty of Arts and Education Faculty Board met today. I am one of three elected members of the Professoriate. It is an important meeting to attend, celebrate achievements and map the future.

Inspiring Orange

Yesterday I had a series of inspiring meetings in Orange, NSW - my neighbouring city. First I met with Asta Fung and we shared wonton soup and our research journeys. I was Asta's lecturer at The University of Sydney in the 1990s. She is undertaking a PhD at the University of Newcastle about breathing and pain control using her speech pathology expertise. Next I met with four fourth year speech pathology students undertaking their fieldwork placements at Orange Community Health/Hospital. I loved their enthusiasm and we talked about how their professional (and personal) futures are an adventure. I believe that they have chosen a fantastic profession to be part of. Finally I spent the afternoon with Cathie Matthews, a speech pathologist and colleague who has worked in the Central West for many years. She is undertaking the NSW Health Rural Research Capacity Building Program and has invited me to be on her mentoring team. What an inspiring day.

Year 4 speech pathology students from The University of Sydney

Cathie Matthews and Sharynne

Invitation to present workshops at the International Bilingualism Symposium

Our VietSpeech team have been invited to present two workshops to the International Symposium on Bilingualism (https://www.isb14.com/) to be held next year.

• Heritage language maintenance – Sarah Verdon, Van H. Tran, Kate Margetson, Sharynne McLeod
• Multilingual speech assessment – Sharynne McLeod, Kate Margetson 

Here is information on ISB13: https://jilc.e-science.space/v2/JILCvol.2.119-120.pdf 

“The first online ISB13 or e-ISB13 seems to be a resounding success, with 579 attendees: 188 PhD students and 391 established scholars. The conference brought together representatives from all over the world. Overall, 47 countries have been represented from 6 continents. The highest numbers of participants have been noted for: Poland (102), the United States (98), Germany (57), the United Kingdom (42), and Canada (36).”

Welcome Nguyen Thi Anh Thu

Today was our first meeting with Nguyễn Thị Anh Thủ. Dr Ben Phạm and I are Miss Thủ's PhD supervisors. She is studying in the special education faculty at Ha Noi National University in Viet Nam. It was exciting to meet with her and to plan her future studies specialising on intervention for children with speech sound disorders.

Dr Ben Phạm, Sharynne, Miss Thủ

Macquarie University graduation

Today I attended the Macquarie University graduation ceremony for education graduates. This week saw the first gradations at Macquarie University since the COVID pandemic began in 2020. I was so proud to see my daughter graduate, and also to see many of my early childhood education colleagues at the ceremony.

Royal Society of NSW garden party at Government House

Today I was priviledged to attend a garden party at Government House in my role as Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW. The event was to celebrate 200 years of the Royal Society. It was a special setting and we enjoyed learning about the history of the Royal Society and of Government House.

We also had the chance to visit the State Library of NSW's exhibit celebrating 200 years of the Royal Society of NSW. We chatted with Lin Sutherland from the Australian Museum who has twice been the President.

 

Thanks and bon voyage Grace Kelly

Over the past year Grace Kelly has worked with Prof Kirrie Ballard and myself on Kirrie's AMP Tomorrow Fund grant to investigate the use of the SayBananas! app with children with speech sound disorders across rural Australia. Grace has been a fantastic colleague, and today was her last day before she heads back to the UK. We will miss her a lot - and hope to catch up with her when we get to visit the UK. We are finalising our analysis in order to present our research at the upcoming Speech Pathology Australia National Conference in May and then to submit our work to a journal.

Thanks again Grace!

Peer reviewing for journals

I try to review as many papers as I can for journals - especially in journals where I submit my own work. While Publons records most of my reviews: https://publons.com/ I was pleased to receive this certificate from IJLCD for my 2021 reviews.

 

First meetings of The [Oxford] Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World

I have held three meetings across different timezones for chapter authors within The [Oxford] Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World. It has been wonderful to see familiar faces as well as to meet new colleagues who are embarking on this exciting journey with me.

Chapter authors - Meeting 1

Chapter authors - Meeting 2

Chapter authors - Meeting 3
(with New Zealand authors writing Samoan and Māori chapters)

Chapter author - Meeting 4
(with Olebeng Mahura who is co-authoring Setswana, isiXhosa, and South African English chapters)

Here is the current Table of Contents

1.     Speech development of monolingual and multilingual children

2.     Articulatory and phonological foundations of children’s speech development 

3.     Cultural considerations regarding children’s speech development

4.     Research into children’s speech development

5.     Afrikaans speech development

6.     Akan speech development

7.     Arabic (Egyptian) speech development

8.     Arabic (Kuwaiti) speech development

9.     Arabic (Lebanese) speech development

10.  Azerbaijani speech development

11.  Bulgarian speech development

12.  Cantonese speech development

13.  Croatian speech development

14.  Danish speech development

15.  Dutch speech development

16.  English (African American) speech development

17.  English (Appalachian) speech development

18.  English (General American) speech development

19.  English (Australian) speech development

20.  English (British) speech development

21.  English (Canadian) speech development

22.  English (Cajun) speech development

23.  English (Fijian) speech development

24.  English (Irish) speech development

25.  English (New Zealand) speech developmen

26.  English (Scottish) speech development

27.  English (South African) speech development

28.  English + Cantonese speech development

29.  English + French speech development

30.  English + Greek speech development

31.  English + Korean speech development

33.  English + Spanish speech development 

34.  English + Vietnamese speech development

35.  Farsi speech development 

36.  Filipino speech development

37.  Finnish speech development

38.  Flemish speech development

39.  French (Canadian) speech development

40.  French (French) speech development

41.  French (Swiss) speech development 

42.  German speech development

43.  Greek (Cypriot) speech development

44.  Greek (Standard) speech development

45.  Hebrew (Israeli) speech development 

46.  Hungarian speech development

47.  Icelandic speech development

48.  Irish speech development 

49.  Italian speech development 

50.  Jamaican Creole speech development 

51.  Japanese speech development 

52.  Korean speech development 

53.  Kurdish speech development

54.  Malay speech development 

55.  Maltese speech development 

56.  Māori speech development

57.  Mandarin/Putonghua speech development 

58.  Norwegian speech development 

59.  Persian speech development

60.  Polish speech development 

61.  Portuguese (Brazilian) speech development 

62.  Portuguese (European) speech development 

63.  Samoan speech development 

64.  Sesotho speech development

65.  Setswana speech development

66.  Slovak speech development 

67.  Slovenian speech development 

68.  Spanish (Andalusian) speech development 

69.  Spanish (Castilian) speech development 

70.  Spanish (Chilean) speech development 

71.  Spanish (Mexican) speech development 

72.  Swedish speech development

73.  Thai speech development

74.  Turkish speech development 

75.  Vietnamese speech development 

76.  Welsh speech development 

77.  isiXhosa speech development

78.  Zapotec speech development 

79.  isiZulu speech development (TBC)

Welcoming new staff and mentoring for 2022

I love my role as a formal and informal mentor across my faculty, university, and the world. Over the past few months I have had the opportunity to welcome new staff to the School of Education and to Charles Sturt University and to discuss their research. Today I had a lovely coffee chat with Leanne Gibbs and Kate Smithers who have joined our school this year. Yesterday I had the opportunity to provide advice to Karen Sinclair from the CSU Research Office regarding how to capture research mentoring.

Welcome to CSU Leanne and Kate!

Speech Pathology Australia National Conference Program

The Speech Pathology Australia National Conference Program has been launched today and the conference will be face-to-face as well as online. It was cancelled in 2020 and online in 2021, so it will be wonderful to see my colleagues again 

 Here are the oral sessions I am co-presenting. 

• M5C: Moving beyond borders with the Culturally Responsive Teamwork Framework (CRTF): Suzanne C. Hopf, Kathryn Crowe, Sarah Verdon, Helen Blake, Sharynne McLeod 
• T3C: Say Bananas! Equitable access to speech intervention for rural children: Sharynne McLeod, Grace Kelly, Beena Ahmed, Kirrie Ballard 
• T6D: Who is ‘correct’ during speech assessment, analysis and diagnosis?: Sharynne McLeod, Sarah Verdon 
• T6E: Bilingual speech and language intervention for Vietnamese-Australian families via telehealth: Sharynne McLeod, Sarah Verdon, Van Tran, Kate Margetson, Cen (Audrey) Wang

Here are the SPARK talks I am co-presenting with honours students

• M3E: Multilingual Fijians students' Fiji English phonological development: Holly McAlister, Suzanne C. Hopf, Sharynne McLeod
• M3C: Student speech pathologists’ perceptions of providing Intelligibility Enhancement via telepractice: Helen L. Blake, Phuong An Nguyen Do, Sharynne McLeod

Effect of dialect on identification and severity of speech sound disorder in Fijian children

The following manuscript has been accepted for publication. 

McAlister, H., Hopf, S. C. & McLeod, S. (2022, in press March). Effect of dialect on identification and severity of speech sound disorders in Fijian children. Speech, Language and Hearing. 

Congratulations Holly on the second publication from your honours thesis. Here is the abstract:

Speech sound disorder (SSD), common in preschool and school-age children internationally, is recognised as a potential barrier to oral-language and literacy acquisition, future social and academic success. Fiji is an island nation in the South Pacific with limited access to speech-language pathology services. In Fiji homes, Fijian and Fiji Hindi are spoken widely; however, at school, Fiji English is the dominant language. Given that Fiji English proficiency is aligned to academic success in Fiji, this study sought to investigate the incidence of SSD amongst Fijian children speaking different dialects of Fiji English and the impact of dialect on diagnostic decision-making. The study analysed Fiji English speech samples of 75 Fijian students (Year 1: n=35, age range: 5;3–7;3; Year 4: n=40, age range: 9;0–10;5). Descriptive and non-parametric statistical analysis were conducted to determine patterns of speech sound errors and the impact of conducting relational analysis with an external standard dialect on the identification of SSD. Some Fijian children presented with SSD in Fiji English upon and beyond school entry. However, the impact of dialect on diagnostic decision-making was significant. When Fiji English dialects were the target, instead of Australian English, mean percentage of consonants correct increased 10.20% and 24/26 students initially identified with SSD were reclassified. Speech-language pathologists and other communication specialists need to consider children’s dialect for valid identification of SSD in Fijian children who speak different dialects of Fiji English.

Online launch of the free bilingual book "VietSpeech: Multilingual Children/Trẻ em Đa ngữ"

Today, the VietSpeech team hosted an online launch of the free bilingual book titled "VietSpeech: Multilingual Children/Trẻ em Đa ngữ". The 52-page book aims to support Vietnamese-Australian children and families to maintain their home language and enhance speech skills in Vietnamese and English. It contains many strategies to support families’ teaching of Vietnamese every day at home. 

The free book is available here: https://www.csu.edu.au/research/vietspeech/info 

Capstan Le

Dr Duong Nguyen

Sheila Pham

Dr Van Tran

 

This book is the culmination of our VietSpeech research project funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery ARC Discovery Grant is titled Vietnamese-Australian children's speech and language competence (DP180102848) that began in 20218 and concluded in December 2021. VietSpeech team members are here: https://www.csu.edu.au/research/vietspeech/team

More details https://about.csu.edu.au/community/events/upcoming/online/vietspeech-book-launch

The CSU media release is here: https://news.csu.edu.au/in-brief/research-delivers-free-bilingual-book-vietspeech-to-be-launched-online  

I have provided radio interviews on ABC Goulburn Murray and 2BS Bathurst regarding the launch. 

ABC published a news story https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-07/new-book-encourages-survival-of-vietnamese-language-in-australia/

VietSpeech team - bilingualism is a superpower

Dr Van Tran and Sheila Pham will mention the book on their SBS radio programs and podcasts.

We hope that it is a useful resource for the world. 

Wow! Our research published by ABC was featured in the Qantas Club!

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-07/new-book-encourages-survival-of-vietnamese-language-in-australia/

Australian board member for the Asia Pacific Society for Speech, Language and Hearing

I have been invited to be the Australian country liaison for the Asia Pacific Society for Speech, Language and Hearing. The country liaison serves as a board member for each country who can support the membership committee to reach out to a national association.

Transcribing Multilingual Children’s and Adults’ Speech

The following manuscript has been accepted for publication today. 

Margetson, K., McLeod, S., Verdon, S. & Tran, V. H. (2022, in press March). Transcribing multilingual children’s and adults’ speech. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics. 

It is the first article that will be included in Kate Margetson's PhD. Congratulations Kate!

Here is the abstract: 

Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) face challenges in transcription and diagnosis of speech sound disorders (SSD) in multilingual children due to ambient language influences and cross-linguistic transfer. This research tested the VietSpeech Multilingual Transcription Protocol, a 4-step process to undertake impressionistic transcription of multilingual speech using data from Vietnamese-Australian children (n = 69) and adult family members (n = 85). The transcription team included an English-speaking SLP, a Vietnamese-English-speaking linguist and accredited interpreter, and two Vietnamese-English-speaking SLPs. (1) Training: The team completed training together in Vietnamese and English phonology. (2) Speech assessment: The participants were assessed using the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology (DEAP) in English and the Vietnamese Speech Assessment (VSA). (3) Transcription comparison: Inter-rater reliability for 10 children and 12 adults was calculated using consonant-by-consonant agreement. For English the 3-way inter-rater agreement was 92.62% for children and 88.69% for adults. For Vietnamese the 4-way inter-rater agreement was 86.57% for children and 96.05% for adults. There was a significant correlation between speech accuracy and inter-rater reliability for children’s consonants in English (r = .95) and Vietnamese (r = .91), and adults’ consonants in English (r = .90). Reliability was influenced by phoneme class and whether the target consonant was shared between languages. (4) Rule generation and consensus: Rules based on near functional equivalence were implemented to maintain consistency and reach consensus. SLPs who do not speak the home language can be supported to transcribe multilingual speech by working with multilingual teams, and understanding personal limitations during multilingual speech assessments.

International Women’s Day

The Vice Chancellor invited me as one of four "Charles Sturt University female leaders" to be profiled on her personal LinkedIn account to honour International Women’s Day on March 8. 

She asked: "What is your advice to young women on how to break the bias?" 

Here is my response: “Collaborate to undertake important, high quality research that changes people’s lives.”

Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics Editorial Board

This morning I attended the annual Editorial Board meeting of Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics. These meetings are so informative.

Clear communication masks

Masks are important during COVID-19. 

https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/369/bmj.m1435.full.pdf

However, masks impede clear communication. 

The Managing Director of Everyday Office National donated a few masks for me to take to the Aphasia Camp last week and said they are TGA approved – but this is not on the website. I tried one out they feel comfortable. I don’t know anything else about them except for the purchasing information below. I'll be interested to hear from colleagues to see if they are useful for speech pathology practice and other situations where clear communication is difficult when wearing traditional masks.

Here are the details: ADULT CLEAR COMMUNICATION MASK Product Code: 2000143 | Product Reference: ADULT CLEAR | AUD $5.44 PER EACH Ex. GST : $4.95 

https://www.officenational.com.au/shop/en/everyday/adult-clear-communication-mask-2000143

 

Say Bananas!

Say Bananas! was built for children with childhood apraxia of speech but can be used for children with any type of speech sound disorder (SSD). Hair et al. (2021) included a sample of 10 children SSD and Prof Kirrie Ballard has just completed a trial with 7 children with cleft palate. 

Here is a Youtube video giving an overview of the app and basic instructions on how to use it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Unh1uKJWwA 

SayBananas! will be launched it in the apps stores soon.