Today we had another very positive visit to the Orange Aboriginal Medical Service (OAMS) to discuss speech pathology access to children and families as well as research collaborations. Sarah Bartlett travelled from Sydney and Cathie Matthews came from Orange Community Health Centre
Prior to the meeting I spent the morning with Cathie Matthews at Orange Community Health Centre entering and analysing data from her Masters research.
Tonight we had a meeting with the editors of the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology to discuss the promotion of our special issue regarding the Sustainable Development Goals.
Here is the link to the special issue: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/iasl20/25/1
Here is the link to our lead paper that outlines the content of the special issue: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17549507.2022.2160494
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| Prof Natalie Munro, Prof Sharynne McLeod, Pei-Yi Wu (SPA), Prof Libby Cardell, Prof Julie Marshall (UK) |
Here is the link to Speech Pathology Australia's webpage describing the special issue: https://bit.ly/SPAWEB_CSSDG
CSU new research magazine - Communique - highlights quite a few things that I have been doing with my team; https://www.csu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/4179896/Research-Communique,-Autumn-2023.pdf
Deputy Vice Chancellor - Research Mark Evans and I co-hosted a 2-day workshop in Bathurst to co-design a new applied policy research initiative at CSU. It was a fantastic time to meet with social science colleagues from across the university to plan for this exciting new venture.
The President of the Royal Society of NSW presented Fellow and Member awards to a number of colleagues in Bathurst prior to the CSU public lecture. It was an honour to receieve the certificate acknowledging that I became a Fellow in 2021 (presentation delayed due to COVID restrictions).
I was invited to present Charles Sturt University's first Provocations Public Lecture on 20th April 2023. It was a joint presentation between Charles Sturt University and the Western NSW Branch of the Royal Society of NSW
Video presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjaxZ97_D3Y
Royal Society of NSW blog: https://royalsoc.org.au/blog/western-nsw-branch-meeting-2023-1
"Children should be seen AND heard: the importance of communication so children can thrive"
Professor Sharynne McLeod FRSN FASSA
Professor of Speech and Language Acquisition, Charles Sturt University
Summary: Communication is a human right for everyone – including children. Being an effective communicator is essential for children’s belonging, being, and becoming – and their ability to thrive. The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes our right to freedom of opinion and expression and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas. This right is echoed in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, Australian health, education, and disability legislation and policies rarely mention children’s communication.
This presentation will draw on extensive large-scale evidence regarding Australian children’s communicative competence and capacity. Children’s drawings, personal insights, and data from 10,000 children within the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) will be described and the communicative competence of multilingual and Indigenous children will be celebrated.
Approximately a quarter of parents of Australian 4- to 5-year-olds in LSAC were concerned about how their child talked and made speech sounds. Longitudinal analyses of LSAC data demonstrated the negative impact of preschool children’s speech and language competency on their subsequent literacy, numeracy, and socialisation. While there are many evidence-based speech pathology interventions to support children’s speech and language skills, “long speech pathology waiting lists” have been identified by an Australian Government Senate Inquiry for almost a decade. Innovations (e.g., websites, computer programs) to reduce the impact of these long waiting lists have been funded by the Australian Research Council and NSW Health; however, most have demonstrated limited improvements on children’s speech and language. This presentation will conclude with a range of policy solutions for interdisciplinary, cross-sectoral change to enable Australia’s children to be seen AND heard so they can thrive.
About the Speaker: Sharynne McLeod PhD is a speech-language pathologist and professor of speech and language acquisition at Charles Sturt University, Australia. She is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and the Royal Society of New South Wales, was an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and has received Honors of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and Life Membership of Speech Pathology Australia. She has co-authored 13 books and 250+ peer-reviewed journal articles and chapters primarily focusing on children’s speech acquisition, speech sound disorders, and multilingualism and has free resources in over 70 languages on the Multilingual Children’s Speech website. She has provided expertise to the World Health Organization and has presented at the United Nations about communication rights. The Australian Newspaper named her Australia’s Research Field Leader in Audiology, Speech and Language Pathology (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022) and Best in the World based on the “quality, volume and impact” of research in the field (2019, 2023).
There were many attendees in person in Bathurst and online. What a privilege to present this lecture.
Today CSU's Vice Chancellor Renée Leon met with School of Education staff on the Bathurst campus. She spoke about our key goals
We appreciated her time to discuss issues with us.
This evening I met with Dr Ben Pham in Vietnam and Dr Kate Crowe in Iceland. Ben has collected speech, intelligiblity and attitudinal data from children with hearing loss. We had a fascinating conversation about the difference about the cultural groups of people who recognise themselves as d/Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH). I look forward to working together on the analysis and write up of this interesting study.
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| Dr Kaate Crowe (Iceland), Sharynne (Australia), Dr Ben Pham (Vietnam) |
Today I had the opportunity to show Dr Jane Garner, Charles Sturt University's ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellow, around Bathurst and CSU. We also had lunch with Dr Emmaline Lear from the Research Office.
Here is Jane's research blog: https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/librariesandhomelessness/about-the-project/research-blog/
Jane's DECRA is investigating policy and practice connections between people who are homeless, libraries, and organisations that support people who are homeless. She is undertaking six case studies, and Bathurst is her first one. I know that she will learn a lot from Bathurst Uniting Support Services (BUSS) and Bathurst City Library. Welcome Jane!
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| The Begonia House in Machattie Park |
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| Dr Emmaline Lear, Dr Jane Garner and Sharynne at CSU Library |
Today the following manuscript was acceptted for publication:
McLeod, S., Kelly, G., Ahmed, B. & Ballard, K. (2023, in press). Equitable access to speech practice for rural Australian children using the SayBananas! mobile game. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology.
Here is the abstract
Purpose. To evaluate the effect, usage, and user-experience for SayBananas!, a Mario-style mobile game providing Australian children access to high-dose individualised speech therapy practice.
Method. Participants were 45 rural Australian children with speech sound disorders (SSD) (4;4-10;5 years) with internet access. This mixed-methods study involved: (1) recruitment, (2) eligibility screening, (3) questionnaire, (4) online pre-assessment, (5) SayBananas! intervention using motor learning principles (4 weeks, 10–15 target words) (6) online post-assessment and interview. Usage and performance were automatically monitored.
Result. Most participants were highly engaged with SayBananas! completing a median of 44.71 trials/session (~45% of the 100 trial/session target, range 7-194). After intervention, participants made significant gains on treated words and on formal assessment of percentage of consonants, vowels, and phonemes correct. There was no reliable change for parent-rated intelligibility or children’s feelings about talking. The number of practice sessions was significantly correlated with percent change on treated words. On average, children rated the app as “happy/good/fun” providing detailed drawings of playing SayBananas!. Families provided high ratings of engagement, functionality, aesthetics, and quality.
Conclusion. SayBananas! is a viable and engaging solution for rural Australian children with SSD to gain access to equitable, cost-effective speech practice. The amount of app use was associated with amount of speech production improvement over a 4-week period.
Next week a 2-day workshop will be held in Bathurst to co-design a new applied policy research initiative at CSU. I have been working with Professor Mark Evans, Deputy Vice Chancellor - Research, and Nilima Mathai from the DVC-R's office to organise the event.
CSU has just posted a media release about the public lecture I will present during the workshop: Free public lecture on the effect of speech deficiencies in pre-school children
The following manuscript has been accepted for publication
McLeod, S., McGill, N., Baldac, S., & Mulcair, G. (2023). Australia’s speech-language pathology profession and its global impact. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups (SIG 17).
Here is the abstract
Purpose: To describe the speech-language pathology profession in Australia and its global impact.
Conclusion: Australia is known for its international collaboration in research, advocacy, leadership in clinical education and training of the workforce, innovations in technology for service delivery and global partnerships. In Australia, speech-language pathologists are known as speech pathologists who have expertise in providing assessment and intervention to optimise communication and/or swallowing for people across the lifespan. Speech Pathology Australia (SPA) is the peak professional body in Australia and was founded in 1949. It is a self-regulating profession, recognised by the Australian government as the body that sets and maintains the standards for the profession. Members can hold Certified Practising Speech Pathology (CPSP) status if they meet annual recency of practice and continuing professional development requirements. Not all speech pathologists are members of SPA. SPA has approximately 14,000 members, almost half (48.9%) are employed in private practices where services may be funded by government funded schemes, private health insurance, or self-funded by service users. Most (96.5%) SPA members are female and 82.8% only speak English with Cantonese being the most common second language spoken. The Professional Standards for Speech Pathologists in Australia outlines the knowledge, skills and attributes for entry-level and practicing speech pathologists. SPA has hosted an annual national conference and produces two journals: International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology. SPA have committed to cultural responsiveness and privileging the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and Communities, the First Peoples of Australia. SPA has aspired to provide culturally safe speech pathology services for all people and supports the development of speech-language pathology in the Asia-Pacific region including Vietnam and Cambodia.
This morning I met with Adam Bannister, Director, Pyrus Event Services to discuss the audio visual requirments for my upcoming public lecture. I was so immpressed by his knowledge and capacity to provide accessible communication environments using quality acoustics, captioning (via stenographers), Auslan interpreters, etc. His work aligns with our work on communication rights:
McLeod, S. (2018). Communication rights: Fundamental human rights for all. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 20(1), 3–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2018.1428687
Van Den Heuij, K. M. L., Neijenhuis, K., & Coene, M. (2018). Acoustic environments that support equally accessible oral higher education as a human right. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 20(1), 108-114. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2017.1413136
Later this morning the School of Education Board meeting was discussing universal design for all of our students. What important concepts to discuss today.
Today I attended an information session run by the Fulbright Commission. I am looking to sponsor someone from the US to come to Australia. There was lots of helpful information - then - to my delight - the Fulbright Commission had invited Dr Kate Crowe to be interviewed about her application, interview, and Fulbright program in the US. She was (unsurprisingly) so impressive! I was so proud.
Since 2010 I have supported the Trinh Foundation and the development of speech and language therapy (SALT) in Vietnam in many small ways. Since this time so much has been achieved. Thanks for your certificate that arrived today.
