Today I presented an invited lecture in Vietnam (held for over 70 delegates in Da Nang and others online). The seminar was organised for speech and language therapists in Vietnam and was sponsored by:
- Medical Committee Netherlands – Vietnam (MCNV)
- Da Nang University of Medical Technology and Pharmacy
- US Aid
- VietHealth
- Trinh Foundation
The 6 hour agenda profiled the work of the graduate speech and language therapists from the Bachelors and Masters programs that have recently begun in Vietnam and five guest speakers including A/Prof Sarah Verdon and myself.
My presentation was titled "The association between children’s communication skills and academic performance"
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| Professor Sharynne McLeod |
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| A/Professor Sarah Verdon |
Here is some of the information that was provided in my letter of invitation:
I really have appreciated the warm emails received after my presentation. Here is an excerpt from one: "Thank you so much for your fascinating presentation today with regards to children’s communication skills and academic performance. That’s absolutely terrific presenting. I’m very much keen on learning the findings from your research...I also noticed that you have acknowledged the indigenous community before you started the presentation. May I know the story behind it? ... Once again, it’s an inspiration to be able to listen to your talk. It was very pleasant to hear your voice.""First of all, I would like to thank you for your continuous valuable expertise and spirit support for our ST [speech therapy] project in particular and for the ST education development in Vietnam in general.
Secondly, I would like to introduce very briefly about MCNV - TFA's ST Edu development project. As you may have known, MCNV and TFA have been collaborating to implement this ST project since 2017 to run a MSALT course at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Ho Chi Minh city to train a group of SALT traineers for 04 medical universities in Vietnam and a BSALT course at the University of Medical Technology and Pharmacy in Da Nang to mainly pilot a Vietnamese-contextualised BSALT curriculum which can be applied by the 04 medical universities which have trained MSALT lecturer from the MSALT course mentioned above. These are the first official ST degree courses in Vietnam. The MSALT course finished last April and the students were awarded with master degrees but they are still doing their clinical internships. The BSALT course will finish this September, by the end of the project cycle and the project will close this September, 2022.
Finally but mainly, I would like to be on behalf of MCNV and MCNV's ST project counterparts to invite you to present your research on "The association between children’s communication skills and academic performance" at our ST thematic workshop on 22nd September. Time slot for your presentation is at 15.40 - 16.00 VN time. This is one of the project closing activities by MCNV, TFA and partner universities, planned as a hybrid workshop."
