A welcome message from the American Board of Child Language and Language Disorders

It was lovely to receive an email today welcoming the new members of the American Board of Child Language and Language Disorders. 

Here is their profile of me: https://www.childlanguagespecialist.org/specialist/sharynne-mcleod/

2022 ARC Laureate Fellows

Congratulations to all of the 2022 ARC Laureate Fellows announced today, and in particular: 

• Professor Karen Thorpe https://www.arc.gov.au/funding-research/funding-schemes/discovery-program/australian-laureate-fellowships/2022-laureate-profile-professor-karen-thorpe

FL220100137 – 10,000 Hours: Time in early education and care for better life opportunity Early childhood care and education programs underpin Australia's economic productivity. They enable parent workforce participation. They also present the potential to promote the learning and development of the children who attend. Realising this potential is dependent on the effectiveness of the experiences provided. Children spend up to 10,000 hours in care and education programs. These hours matter. They occur at a critical point in human development in which social, emotional and learning experiences set the neural foundations for lifetime wellbeing and achievement. Understanding the ways in which programs can more effectively contribute to positive life course development benefits Australian families, society and economy. This study applies complex analyses of unique, contemporary datasets and a longitudinal study with linkage to ongoing school records to identify strategies that promote child learning and redress current social inequities. It plans to advance theory, provide multidisciplinary research training and offer new directions for realising the promise of Australia's early learning programs. Australian Research Council funding: $3,320,000

•  Professor Anne Castles https://www.arc.gov.au/funding-research/funding-schemes/discovery-program/australian-laureate-fellowships/2022-laureate-profile-professor-anne-castles

FL220100061 – Literacy in adolescence: The next major challenge in the science of reading Becoming proficient in reading and writing transforms children's lives. It opens vast new opportunities for them to acquire knowledge and communicate and maximises their potential to become productive members of society. For this reason, it is of major national concern that Australian literacy rates have been steadily falling over the past two decades, with as many as 40% of 15-year-olds failing to meet international minimum standards (PISA, 2018). Professor Castles seeks to identify ways to improve literacy outcomes in Australian secondary school students by conducting a comprehensive, theoretically-informed investigation of literacy in this cohort – focussing particularly on disadvantaged and non-English speaking students - and situating the research within the broader socio-emotional context of adolescence. Project outcomes will inform state and national policy in secondary school teaching, and guide practice and intervention. In doing so, the project will contribute to the national effort to reduce the social and economic cost of low literacy, with the ultimate beneficiaries being Australia's children. Australian Research Council funding: $3,147,256

Participatory approaches to ethical (infant) research and pedagogy

Today I attended a fascinating presentation in the School of Education Research Seminar titled "Intentional research: Participatory approaches to ethical (infant) research and pedagogy" by Dr Andi Salamon. 

Abstract: Participatory research approaches aim to break down distinctions between researchers and those being ‘researched’. Such approaches have been critiqued in relation to very young children with the suggestion that the participation of children under three in research (and often pedagogical practice) is an illusion (Palaiologou, 2014). It is argued, however, that possibilities exist to consider infant research participants in ethically symmetrical ways to adult participants, and by not doing so we can ‘other’ very young children (Salamon, 2015). Such seemingly conflicting perspectives highlight the inherent challenges of including people with the least power as research participants. This week’s SoE Research Seminar presents the innovative methodological shifts of a research project that documented and deconstructed infants’ evocative emotional communication. Framed through a theory of practice architectures lens the project afforded babies opportunities to participate, enabled by methodological choices, critical reflection on the ‘happening-ness’ of practices and considered as ‘intentional research’. The presentation aligns this approach with intentional teaching pedagogy in Australian early childhood education contexts, and discusses implications for high quality practices in pedagogy with infants, in qualitative research and in any educational system more broadly.

 

Charles Sturt University Open Day

Today was Charles Sturt University Open Day on the Bathurst Campus. It was great to talk with people who had travelled from near and far (e.g., Wollongong) to find out more about our university and the courses we offer. It was also really nice to see colleagues and meet students from across the university.

Faculty of Arts and Education colleagues

School of Communication students and colleagues

 

The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World - Progress

This week I met with Julia Steer from Oxford University Press to discuss the exciting progress of The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World. So far, I have accepted eight chapters, reviewed eight chapters and have received 26 additional chapters. I received permission to invite authors to write three more chapters. We also discussed promotion of the book's content at upcoming conferences in 2022 and 2023.

I also met with Mark Filmer from Charles Sturt University who will be copyediting the book. We will start this collaboration in October when I have finalised more of the chapters.

The book is on track for ontime submission. The content is fascinating! I am loving working on this.

Therapy approaches for speech sound disorders

Here is a great summary of lots of our research in The Informed SLP: https://www.theinformedslp.com/review/everything-you-want-to-know-about-treatment-approaches-for-speech-sound-disorders

This is a helpful summary: https://tislp-bucket-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/SSD_Tx_Approaches_538b547e54.pdf 

"Where can I go to learn more? Check out the research and resources linked above under each approach and in our downloadable chart. You can also consider: 

• Textbooks! They are your friends here. We consulted this 2021 textbook edited by Williams, McLeod & McCauley heavily when putting together this piece, but we also love this one from McLeod & Baker. This one from Bernthal, Bankson, & Flipsen is another good option. 
• ASHA’s Practice Portal for Articulation and Phonology 
• This cool interactive resource for clinical decision-making from Ulster University in the UK 
• Check out episodes 34 and 36 of the SeeHearSpeak podcast where guest host Dr. Kelly Farquharson (who consulted on this review), talks complexity and treatment approaches."

ECV2022 - week 2 statistics

ECV2022 has now received 704 registrations from 50 countries, 5 abstracts and 1 keynote speaker - and its only the second week since we began advertising it!

ECV2022 team: Nicole Longhurst, Sharynne McLeod, Shukla Sikder, Carolyn Gregoric

We have recorded our welcome message from the conference chairs, and have confirmed that there will be three elements to the conference this year:

1. ECV2022 General conference papers

2. ECV2022 International children's speech development

3. ECV2022 Children draw talking art exhibition

In the news: Speech Pathology Week

It is Speech Pathology Australia Week and the theme is "Good communication builds better communities" https://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/

Our research is being profiled for Speech Pathology Week.

• ABC Melbourne radio with Virginia Trioli (23 August) https://www.abc.net.au/melbourne/programs/mornings/home-language/101361330
• SBS NITV Radio with Bertrand Tungandame (24 August) https://www.sbs.com.au/language/nitv-radio/en/podcast-episode/professor-sharynne-mcleod-on-keeping-origin-language-alive/9z8oathrq
  
• 2BS Bathurst with Liam O'Connell (24 August) https://www.2bs.com.au/
  
• Western Plains News App with Marnie Ryan (28 August) https://westernplainsapp.com.au/news/news/say-bananas-testing-a-speech-pathology-app-for-isolated-kids?id=630aa2ea0899c2002c4605dc
  

Here are our recent CSU media releases:

• App research helps speech therapy for rural Australian children https://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/app-research-helps-speech-therapy-for-rural-australian-children 
• First of its kind research aids multilingual Fijian children’s speech sound acquisition: https://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/first-of-its-kind-research-aids-multilingual-fijian-childrens-speech-sound-acquisition
• Research delivers free bilingual book VietSpeech to be launched online https://news.csu.edu.au/in-brief/research-delivers-free-bilingual-book-vietspeech-to-be-launched-online
  

ABC radio has been interested in our VietSpeech research. To date, most of the media we have received about this has been in Vietnamese media so it is great to see mainstream Australian media now being interested as a result of Speech Pathology Week's theme:

https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2022/04/media-vn-peoples-army-newsletter.html

Here are some links about our VietSpeech research:

• VietSpeech: https://www.csu.edu.au/research/vietspeech/
• Free book for families about home language maintenance - VietSpeech Mulitilingual Children/ Trẻ em Đa ngữ: https://www.csu.edu.au/research/vietspeech/info
• Multilingual Children’s Speech website with resources in >70 languages: https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech
• The lifelong effects of speaking multiple languages CSU video: https://www.facebook.com/charlessturtuni/videos/389529092102982/

In the news: App research helps speech therapy for rural Australian children

It is Speech Pathology Australia Week and the theme is "Good communication builds better communities". CSU has published the following media release: App research helps speech therapy for rural Australian children

https://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/app-research-helps-speech-therapy-for-rural-australian-children

In the news: First of its kind research aids multilingual Fijian children’s speech sound acquisition

Last week CSU media  published a story about our resreach understaken in Fiji. The story is based on Holly's honours research. We are excited that Holly is now undertaking her PhD with us.

The CSU media release is here: https://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/first-of-its-kind-research-aids-multilingual-fijian-childrens-speech-sound-acquisition

Here are the journal articles Holly has published from her Honours research that were quoted in the news release:

McAlister, H., Hopf, S. C., & McLeod, S. (2022). Effect of dialect on identification and severity of speech sound disorder in Fijian children. Speech, Language and Hearing, Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/2050571X.2022.2052506 

McAlister, H., McLeod, S., & Hopf, S. C. (2022). Fijian school students’ Fiji English speech sound acquisition. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2022.2044905

 

Conferences

There are a lot of exciting conferences that will be held over the next year: 

• Early Childhood Voices 2022 (ECV2022): 5-9 December 2022, online: https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/early-childhood-voices-conference-2022/ 
• American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) November 2022, New Orleans, USA: https://convention.asha.org/ 
• Speech Pathology Australia (SPA): 21-24 May, 2023, Australia: https://conference.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/speech-pathology-australia-2023-national-conference 
• International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB): 26-30 June 2023, Online/Sydney Australia: https://www.isb14.com/home 
• International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association (ICPLA): June 2023, Salzburg, Austria 
  
• International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders (IALP): 20-24 August 2023, Auckland, NZ: http://ialpauckland2023.org/

Language development: Individual differences in a social context

The following book has just been published: 

Law, J., Reilly, S., & McKean, C. (Eds.) (2022). Language development: Individual differences in a social context. Cambridge University Press. 

The book is available here https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/languages-linguistics/psycholinguistics-and-neurolinguistics/language-development-individual-differences-social-context?format=HB&isbn=9781108494090 

We wrote Chapter 15. Communication, Participation and Cohort Studies -- Sharynne McLeod, Jane McCormack, and Helen L. Blake

The editors sent the following email today: 

Thank you for your excellent contributions and for your patience with a longer than expected gestation. It is of course a bittersweet moment as this book was James’ vision and we have been working together for more than 3 years to bring it to publication. Cristina and I wrote a tribute to him acknowledging this and his wider contribution to the field which appears at the start of the book and which can be accessed here We hope you will be as pleased as we are with the excellent contributions that make it a wonderful resource for so many. James would be proud. - Sheena and Cristina

 Their tribute to James Law can be accessed here: https://assets.cambridge.org/97811084/94090/frontmatter/9781108494090_frontmatter.pdf

Dr Van Tran's second PhD graduation

Dr Van H. Tran graduated with her second PhD on Thursday 18th August at 10am in Sydney. 

Here is the URL for the livestream of the ceremony: https://www.facebook.com/charlessturtgraduations 

Her PhD thesis is here: https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/en/publications/home-language-maintenance-among-vietnamese-australian-families

Van's PhD was part of our Australian Research Council Discover Grant: https://www.csu.edu.au/research/vietspeech/overview

Van's supervisory team were: Prof Sharynne McLeod, A/Prof Sarah Verdon, Dr Cen (Audrey) Wang. Unfortunately Sarah was unable to attend the graduation ceremony, but Kate Margetson who also worked on the VietSpeech grant was able to attend.

Van has published a number of papers from her PhD including:

Tran, V. H., McLeod, S., Verdon, S., & Wang, C. (2021). Vietnamese–Australian parents: Factors associated with language use and attitudes towards home language maintenance. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2021.1904963 

Tran, V. H., Wang, C., McLeod, S., & Verdon, S. (2021). Vietnamese–Australian children’s language proficiency and use. International Journal of Bilingualism, 25(6), 1735-1763. https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069211034587 

Tran, V. H., Verdon, S., McLeod, S., & Wang, C. (2022). Family language policies of Vietnamese–Australian families. Journal of Child Science, 12(1), e67-e78. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0042-1743490

Congratulations Dr Dr Van Tran! We are so pleased you were a member of our VietSpeech team and that we were able to learn so much from you.

 

Prof Sharynne McLeod, Dr Dr Van Tran, Dr Audrey Wang, Kate Margetson

Dr Van Tran, Sharynne, A/Prof Sarah Verdon

ECV2022 first committee meeting

ECV2022 has begun with a huge level of interest.

In just one week we have had 540 registrations from 48 countries and 3 abstracts submitted!

Argentina Armenia (Армения) Australia Bahrain Bangladesh Belgium Cambodia Canada Chile China Cook Islands Costa Rica Croatia Denmark Dubai England Ethiopia Fiji Germany Ghana Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Iraq Ireland Italy Latvia Malta Mexico Netherlands New Zealand Northern Ireland Philippines Qatar Réunion Scotland Singapore South Africa Switzerland the Netherlands Tonga Turkey United Kingdom United States Vanuatu Viet Nam Zambia 

ECV2022: https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/early-childhood-voices-conference-2022/ 

Free registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/early-childhood-voices-conference-2022-tickets-399348240337

Important Dates 

• Abstract submission closes Monday 19th September 2022 
• Abstract submission outcome Friday 7th October 2022 
• Pre-recorded presentations due Monday 7th November 2022 
• Online conference Monday 5th to Friday 9th December 2022 

Download flyer: https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/CSU-ECV2022-flyer-220816-1.pdf

 

Visiting The University of Sydney

Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit Professor Leanne Togher at the School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health at The University of Sydney. I really enjoyed catching up on our lives and research and sharing advice about grant writing and mentoring. I also had a chance to chat with Dr Liss Brunner and Dr Rebecca Sutherland.

This was the first time I had been invited to visit since I left in 1999. Over the past few years the department has moved from their campus in Lidcombe to the Broadway campus. I visited the new Susan Wakil Building and had a chance to view the 5th floor containing staff and student hotdesks and lockers (it is an open-plan building), simulation suite, and on-campus clinic. 

Sharynne, Leanne Togher and the painting of Elinor Wray, the first director of the first speech therapy course in Australia. This painting used to be by my office door when I worked at The University of Sydney.

Simulation hospital ward

Simulation baby

Staff lockers

Staff hotdesks

Chatting with Dr Liss Brunner.
Leanne and I found our PhDs on the shelf in the department

Professor Leanne Togher holds many roles: 

• Professor of Communication Disorders Following Traumatic Brain Injury 
• Senior NHMRC Elizabeth Blackburn Research Fellow 
• Supervisor, Communication Sciences 
• Executive Leadership Team, Brain and Mind Centre 
• Director, speechBITE www.speechbite.com 
• Director, Acquired Brain Injury Communication Lab 
• Chief investigator, NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Aphasia Rehabilitation 
• Board of Governors, International Brain Injury Association
  
• International Board member, Journals Board, American Speech Language and Hearing Association (ASHA) 
• Development Group Member for TBI, World Health Organization 
• Chair, Editorial Board, Brain Impairment

CSU SPAN workshop: Planning Surveys and Designing Questionnaires

Today I attended Part 1 of the 3-part presentation titled "Planning Surveys and Designing Questionnaires. It was presented by Gail Fuller who works with the CSU Spatial Analysis Network (SPAN). Gail has been a fantastic support for our own research and research students.

This three part integrated workshop is designed to introduce the processes and steps involved in planning a survey and creating a questionnaire that effectively gathers the data you need to satisfy your research questions. It will cover question and questionnaire design and type, population size, choice and how to connect, testing and redesign, data collection and storage, what works and what doesn't over the entire process, what support is available.

Census = entire population

Target population = scope

Survey population = coverage

ASHA diversity, equity, and inclusion showcase

 We just received the following email from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA):

"Dear Sharynne, Your publication Advancing Workplace Diversity Through the Culturally Responsive Teamwork Framework has been selected for inclusion on our forthcoming DEI Showcase. The showcase will promote ASHA articles related to diversity, equity, and inclusion."

Hopf, S. C., Crowe, K., Verdon, S., Blake, H. L., & McLeod, S. (2021). Advancing workplace diversity through the Culturally Responsive Teamwork Framework. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 30(5), 1949-1961. https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_AJSLP-20-00380
 

Here is our related Kudos page: https://www.growkudos.com/publications/10.1044%25252F2021_ajslp-20-00380/reader

New Adjunct Research Fellow at CSU

Today I had a wonderful conversation with Dr Olebeng Mahura from South Africa who has agreed to become an Adjunct Research Fellow at CSU. I was an examiner of Dr Mahura's Masters' thesis a long time ago and have admired and quoted her work over the years. It will be wonderful to work more closely with her in this new role.  

Here are some of Olebeng's publications:

Mahura, O. O., & Pascoe, M. (2016). The acquisition of Setswana segmental phonology in children aged 3.0–6.0 years: A cross-sectional study. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 18(6), 533–549. https://doi.org/10.3109/17549507.2015.1126639 

Pascoe, M., Mahura, O., & Le Roux, J. (2018). South African English speech development: Preliminary data from typically developing preschool children in Cape Town. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 32(12), 1145-1161. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699206.2018.1510985 

Pascoe, M., Mahura, O., & Rossouw, K. (2019). Transcribing and transforming: Towards inclusive, multilingual child speech training for South African speech-language therapy students. Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica. https://doi.org/10.1159/000499427 

Pascoe, M., Rossouw, K., & Mahura, O. (2018). Core vocabulary intervention for an isiXhosa-English speaking child with speech sound difficulties. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 36(4), 313-328. https://doi.org/10.2989/16073614.2018.1548292

Australian Catholic University Adjunct Professor

I am an Adjunct Professor at the Australian Catholic University. This morning I met with A/Prof Jane McCormack to discuss grants, conference presentations, mentoring, publications, and the second edition of our book. We always have such productive discusssions where we plan how we support our staff and students from CSU and ACU to collaborate and grow.

Oxford Handbook conversations with Prof Barbara May Bernhardt

Emeritus Professor Barbara May Bernhardt from UBC, Canada has supported researchers across the world to undertake research into children's speech development (see https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2013/08/international-meeting-about-speech.html). Consequently, she is a co-author on numerous chapters in The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World. We met yesterday to discuss her contribution, and also some more ideas of how we can continue to collaborate on committees and at conferences. She is a wonderful colleague.

Early Childhood Voices Conference 2022 (ECV2022) abstract submission is open

The Early Childhood Voices Conference 2022 (ECV2022) abstract submission is open and we are now able to order tickets to the event. This has been a productive week working with Dr Shukla Sikder (co-chair) and Dr Carolyn Gregoric.

More information: https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/early-childhood-voices-conference-2022/ 

Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/early-childhood-voices-conference-2022-tickets-399348240337 

We already have had some WONDERFUL feedback on the first day we have promoted the conference:

• From Australia: "I wanted to say what a wonderful opportunity this is. So please let your people know that this is a brilliant service to the EY sector, really fantastic, and we shall promote it across the country. I don’t recall any other university doing such a thing, so I think this is really brilliant." 
• From Vietnam: "Thanks for sharing this. It's exciting. I and my team in Vietnam will submit to the ECV2022"

We advertised ECV2022 on Tuesday evening, and in one day we had 131 conference registrations including from Australia, Canada, Ehiopia, Argentina, Turkey, Bangladesh, Ireland, Fiji, United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, South Africa, Dubai and Tonga. This is going to be another great conference!

Springer book - Early Childhood Voices

We have 11 chapters submitted and under review for the Early Childhood Voices book to be published by Springer. 10 more chapters are being finalised. 

Linda Mahony, Sharynne McLeod, Jenny Dwyer

Mentoring for promotion

It is that time of year again at CSU - and I am spending a lot of time mentoring colleagues as they prepare and finalise their promotion applications. For many of these people we have been  working together for a number of years: firstly preparing their CVs, then looking for gaps, commencing leadership opportunities, and finally writing about their achievements, impact and standing in their fields. Supporting people to go for promotion also provides mentoring for grant writing and other research opportunities. I work across the whole university, mostly with women, and it is a joy to see their final documents.

Culturally responsive practice for children with communication disorders

Congratulations A/Prof Sarah Verdon on your prestigous invitation to present a live webinar for the American Board of Child Language and Language Disorders titled: "Culturally responsive practice for children with communication disorders" https://speechpathology.com

Warm donations

Today I assisted with distributing donated scarves, beanies and gloves to students at Charles Sturt University. The items were knitted and donated by members of Bathurst Uniting Church. It was such a joy to see the students selecting their warm scarves.

Training session for ERA 2023 Field of Research (FoR) Champions

Today I attended the CSU training session for ERA 2023 Field of Research (FoR) Champions. This year I am a research champion for FoR3903 - "Education systems". Here are all of the FoR codes for Education:

DIVISION 39 EDUCATION 

• 3901 Curriculum and pedagogy 
• 3902 Education policy, sociology and philosophy 
• 3903 Education systems 
• 3904 Specialist studies in education 
•  3999 Other education

Here is some information from the Australian Research Council: https://online.flippingbook.com/view/52483419/8/

Welcome Carolyn to ECIR and ECV2022

We are thrilled that Dr Carolyn Gregoric has begun as the Research Officer for the Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research Group this week. She is working on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays (21 hours/week) - hooray! Her first task is to support the Early Childhood Voices 2022 (ECV2022) Conference. Welcome Carolyn.

Dr Shukla Sikder, Sharynne, Dr Carolyn Gregoric

Vietnamese refugees remembered

Last week I caught up with Emeritus Professor Lindy McAllister in Brisbane. In addition to discussing many issues, we visited the statue that states

IN MEMORY

Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese boat people perished at sea on their journeys seeking freedom from 1975-1995.

IN GRATITUDE

In the hour of our greatest need - you were there. We thank you Australia.