VietSpeech Study 2 revisions

Publishing large-scale studies takes a lot of work. We recieved helpful comments on our main VietSpeech Study 2 paper which have required extensive revisions. We have been asked to combine two papers into one huge paper and do a few more analyses. I really miss working with Dr Audrey Wang - so it was nice to get back into the statistical analysis of these data today. We are very proud of the work that has gone into this paper and look foward to when it will be deemed ready for publication.

Dr Audrey Wang and Sharynne

Congratulations Sarah Faulks on submitting your honours proposal

Congratulations to Sarah Faulks who submitted her Honours research proposal today titled "Bilingual language assessment for Vietnamese-Australian children". Sarah is supervised by A/Prof Sarah Verdon and her co-supervisors are Dr Van Tran and myself.

Keynote speaker at the European Speech and Language Therapy Association (ESLA) Congress in Salzburg

I was honoured to be invited to be keynote speaker at the European Speech and Language Therapy Association (ESLA) Congress in Salzburg, Austria on Saturday 28th May, 2022. ESLA was previously known as CPLOL. 

My keynote address was titled "Children's speech: The future is now"

• Here is the ESLA program: https://eslacongress.eu/programme-overview/ 
• Here are the keynote speakers: https://eslacongress.eu/programme-keynote-speakers/ 
• Here is my abstract: https://eslacongress.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Abstract_McLeod.pdf 
• Here is the Twitter thread from my keynote address: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1530362879723323392.html

Honorary Professor (Adjunct), University of Technology Sydney

This weekend I really enjoyed catching up with Prof Bronwyn Hemsley, head of the speech pathology program at University of Technology Sydney. I am Honorary Professor (Adjunct) at UTS and value the collaboration with UTS colleagues and students. We chatted about chat rural placements, sustainable development goals and book writing strategies.

Impact: Review of "Predicting which children will normalize without intervention for speech sound disorders"

How exciting. The Informed SLP has reviewed: 

To, C. K. S., McLeod, S., Sam, K. L., & Law, T. (2022, in press). Predicting which children will normalize without intervention for speech sound disorders. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-21-00444

Here's the review: https://www.theinformedslp.com/review/the-waiting-game 

 

Faculty research update

Some interesting stats were presented today at the Faculty of Arts and Education Forum:

• 84% of 2021 journal articles were in Q1/Q2 journals
• 75% of books and 70% chapters with "quality" publishers 
• 167 HDR degree enrolments (PhD, doctorates and masters by research) + 6 new + 22 under examination + 3 approved to graduate
• HDR enrolments: 76% online/24% oncampus; 78% part time.
  

European Congress of Speech and Language Therapy (ESLA) - Salzburg, Austria

This week is the European Congress of Speech and Language Therapy (ESLA) https://eslacongress.eu/ - Salzburg, Austria.

The conference is offered live, virtual, and on-demand (https://eslacongress.eu/programme-overview/). The program looks fantastic. There are 332 participants, 110 oral presentations, 5 keynote speakers, 101 posters. 

The physical location (Salzburg) is one of my favourite places in the world. The social program includes a Chamber Concert at the Salzburg Residence Palace https://www.domquartier.at/en/state-rooms/ and the Gala Dinner at Stieglkeller https://www.restaurant-stieglkeller.at/en/impressionen. 

I wish I was able to attend. At least I can attend virtually as a keynote speaker. 

 

Presenting virtually at two conferences this week

There are two wonderful speech-language pathology conferences being held this week and I am virtually attending both of them and physically attending neither of them due to health issues.

1. Speech Pathology Australia (SPA) National Conference being held in Melbourne, Australia
2. European Congress of Speech and Language Therapy (ESLA) being held in Salzburg, Austria.

I am so glad I can follow along on Twitter.

The Unserved: Addressing the needs of those with communication disorders

I have co-authored two chapters in the following book: The Unserved: Addressing the needs of those with communication disorders https://www.jr-press.co.uk/the-unserved.html edited by Sandra Levey and Pamela Enderby.

• Chapter 8 - Supporting the Communication of Underserved Children in Vietnam 
• Chapter 10 - Speech Sound Disorders in Underserved or Unserved Populations 

It is an honour to be published in this important book. Here is the description:

The International Association of Logopaedics and Phoniatrics (IALP), now called The International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders, was established in 1924. Its objective is to bring together professionals to promote research and clinical practice to support the needs of those with communication and swallowing disorders who lack health and other basic services. The Unserved, authored by members of the Association, celebrates 100 years of the IALP by presenting ideas to assist all those who work with children and adults who have difficulty in communicating or swallowing in order to improve services for unserved and underserved communities. It offers strategies to address disorders and conditions that affect many areas of everyday life and which are exacerbated by lack of adequate health, education and social services. Each chapter will be available as a free download after publication in summer 2022 on application to the Association. The print copy of the book will be published in October 2023 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the founding of IALP.

 

Speech Pathology Australia National Conference

This week is the Speech Pathology Australia National Conference. It is the third year in a row that I am not attending, previously due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this time due to medical issues. However, I am co-presenting six papers, some of which I pre-recorded. I am grateful to my students and colleagues who are presenting on my behalf and am thankful for updates via Twitter and email.

Here are the papers I am co-authoring that will be presented this week:

1. McLeod, S., Kelly, G., Ahmed, B., Ballard, K. (2022, May). Say Bananas! Equitable access to speech intervention for rural children. [Oral presentation]. Speech Pathology Australia National Conference, Melbourne, Australia. 
2. McLeod, S. & Verdon, S., (2022, May). Who is ‘correct’ during speech assessment, analysis and diagnosis? [Oral presentation]. Speech Pathology Australia National Conference, Melbourne, Australia. 
3. McLeod, S. & Verdon, S., Tran, V. T., Margetson, K., Wang, C. (2022, May). Bilingual speech and language intervention for Vietnamese-Australian families via telehealth. [Oral presentation]. Speech Pathology Australia National Conference, Melbourne, Australia. 
4. Hopf, S. C., Crowe, K., Verdon, S., Blake, H. L. & McLeod, S. (2022, May). Moving beyond borders with the Culturally Responsive Teamwork Framework. [Oral presentation]. Speech Pathology Australia National Conference, Melbourne, Australia. 
5. McAlister, H., Hopf, S. C., & McLeod, S. (2022, May). Multilingual Fijian students’ Fiji English phonological development. [Oral sparks presentation]. Speech Pathology Australia National Conference, Melbourne, Australia. 
6. Nguyen Do, P. A., Blake, H. L., & McLeod, S. (2022, May). Student speech pathologists’ perceptions of providing Intelligibility Enhancement via telepractice. [Oral sparks presentation]. Speech Pathology Australia National Conference, Melbourne, Australia. 

Holly McAlister presenting her honours research at SPA2022

 

    Presenting our Say Bananas! research virtually

Presenting our VietSpeech research virtually

Dr Suzanne Hopf and Dr Nicole McGill at the SPA AGM

Precious PhD students

 I love the stimulation of conversation with my PhD students.

Kate Margetson Zoom meeting - 23 May 2022

 

Caitlin Hurley MS Teams meeting - 30 May 2022

Higher Education Standards Framework (HESF) Mandatory Course

All Charles Sturt University staff are required to complete a Higher Education Standards Framework (HESF) Mandatory  Course online during May. 

Here is HESF Standard 7.2.1 “Accurate, relevant and timely information for students is publicly available and accessible, including access for students with special needs, to enable informed decision making about educational offerings and experiences.” The HESF standards can be found here: https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2022C0010

 Here is information from the CSU course:

"HESF Compliance - A Joint Enterprise. We all contribute to HESF compliance at the University. It is not the role of one team or person to manage our HESF compliance obligations. Each of us are experts in our area of work and are therefore best placed to understand and implement the necessary processes in that area, which enhance HESF compliance. It is also important to remember that HESF compliance is not a ‘once in a while’ action or 'someone else's job'. It is a requirement of our registration as a higher education provider, that compliance with HESF be maintained by all of us and at all times. It should be an every day activity." 

 It is likely that many other universities are doing this too - but I think that CSU may be the only one whose course materials contains sheep!

Oxford University Press contracts are ready

Oxford University Press is currently sending contracts to the chapter authors for The Oxford Handbook on Speech Development in Languages of the World. How exciting!

I have already received chapters titled Sesotho Speech Development and Flemish Speech Development. This is going to be a fantastic book.

 

Explaining patterns in children's speech acquisition data

This morning Dr Kate Crowe and I met with Prof Morten Christiansen, Steven Elmlinger and Pablo Andres Contreras Kallens from Cornell University https://psychology.cornell.edu/morten-h-christiansen 

We are going to collaborate on a project to use statistical learning to explore whether young children's linguistic experiences can explain patterns in children's speech acquisition data. The Cornell University team will re-analyse the data from the following papers. I'm looking forward to see the first set results because their pilot work using data contained within these papers is very promising.

• McLeod, S., & Crowe, K. (2018). Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 27(4), 1546–1571. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100 
• Crowe, K., & McLeod, S. (2020). Children's English consonant acquisition in the United States: A review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 29(4), 2155–2169. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_AJSLP-19-00168 

Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research (ECIR) research assistant and PhD student

Today we appointed our new Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research research assistant - Carolyn Gregoric.

We have also advertised the Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research PhD Scholarship. https://research.csu.edu.au/study-with-us/scholarships/early-childhood-interdisciplinary-research Applications close 13 June 2022. The scholarship will be awarded on a competitive basis to students undertaking innovative research aligned with one or more of the priorities below: 

1: Early childhood interdisciplinary practice in regional Australia In this theme we explore models of interdisciplinary practice in the first 2000 days and how successful models could be translated to optimise outcomes for infants and children in regional Australia. 

2: International children’s communication In this theme we explore how interdisciplinary practice can be harnessed to privilege children's rights and communication capacity. 

3: Listening to children’s perspectives using drawing In this theme we explore how children's drawings enable communication to transcend the inherent disciplinarity within education, health and wellbeing

Ethical Research Involving Children

This evening I attended an excellent seminar presented by Prof Anne Graham and Julia Truscott from the University of Southern Queensland via the Queens University Belfast Centre for Children's Rights.

There were some excellent resources shared during the presentation via ERIC: https://childethics.com/

https://childethics.com/ethical-guidance/

ACU Speed Session for May

I have presented May's Speed Session for Australian Catholic University. Here is what they have advertised about the session: 

Speed Session 1.: Presented by Professor Sharynne McLeod 

Speed Session Title: Multilingual children's speech 

Recording: https://echo360.net.au/media/1b5f5ec3-0e07-4378-abb2-7fc0489e0ba2/public 

Presentation handout: available

Sharynne McLeod is a speech-language pathologist and professor of speech and language acquisition at Charles Sturt University, Australia and adjunct professor at Australian Catholic University. She has received Honors of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, is a Life Member of Speech Pathology Australia, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales. She has been an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, Vice President of the International Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics Association, and Elected Board Member of the International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders (IALP). She has co-authored 11 books and over 230 peer reviewed journal articles and chapters focusing on children’s speech acquisition, speech sound disorders, and multilingualism. She was named Australia’s Research Field Leader in Audiology, Speech and Language Pathology (2018, 2019, 2020) and Best in the World based on the “quality, volume and impact” of research in the field (2019) by The Australian Newspaper. She has won Editors’ Awards from Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing: Speech (2018), American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology (2019), and Topics in Language Disorders (2020).

https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2022/04/australian-catholic-university-speed.html

Gorgeous autumn weather

I am currently on leave - and am enjoying the gorgeous autumn colours and weather in Bathurst.