Early identification of communication delay by health and education professionals in rural Australia

Today Cathie Matthews and I had a productive day working on her Masters' thesis. We were working on a paper titled "Early identification of communication delay by health and education professionals in rural Australia". Her mixed methods study sought to assess the feasibility of the Early Communication Measures to identify communication risk in 48 2-year-old children by eight early childhood educators, eight child and family health nurses, and 48 caregivers.

While we were working we learned that her abstract was accepted for presentation at the upcoming Speech Pathology Australia National Conference in Perth in May 2024. Congratulations Cathie.

Data collection has begun for our DTTC Once Upon a Time Foundation Grant

Today Dr Anna Cronin met with Marie Ireland (research assistant) and myself to document the commencement of our DTTC Once Upon a Time Foundation grant. One huge achievement is that the box containing packs of 10 markers have made it to Marie in the US for the children to use for their drawings (we have had a lot of angst organising this!). Marie has made a video with a child who has agreed to be on advisory committee. Anna will go to the US to meet with the rest of the team next week. I can't wait to see the children's drawings and feedback on their speech interventions.

Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research (ECIR) work has begun for 2024

Today Dr Carolyn Gregoric and I met for the first time in 2024. She has been busily working on our AJEC conference presentations and our children on campus rapid review while I have been on holidays. Our amazing ECIR team has so many exciting projects for 2024 including our Early Childhood Voices 2024 (ECV2024) conference and creation of The Treehouse. Let the fun begin.

Kate's PhD is almost finished

This morning I met with Kate Margetson and A/Prof Sarah Verdon to go through Sarah's comments on Kate's entire PhD. We are very proud of her writing and thinking - and she will be ready to submit soon.

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On Wednesday I read Kate's excellent penultimate draft - it will be ready to submit very soon.

Holidays

I have had a month off from work - and have had lots of fun with family and friends. While there have been some urgent work tasks, particularly with the ARC, my PhD student, and some people in the northern hemisphere, I have been able to enjoy time off. Back to work on Monday.

Special issue on Speech Sound Disorders in International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders

Over the past few years in my role on the Child Speech Committee of IALP I have initiated a discussion about terminology surrounding "speech sound disorders". This has resulted in a special issue on speech sound disorders that will soon be published in International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders. Here are the papers that have already been published in early view:

• Considerations of dialect on the identification of speech sound disorder in Vietnamese‐speaking children - Ben Phạm & Sharynne McLeod - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1460-6984.12992 
• Speech sound disorder or DLD (phonology)? Towards a consensus agreement on terminology - Helen Stringer, Joanne Cleland, Yvonne Wren, Rachel Rees, Pam Williams - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1460-6984.12989
• How differences in anatomy and physiology and other aetiology affect the way we label and describe speech in individuals with cleft lip and palate - Valerie J. Pereira &  Debbie Sell - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1460-6984.12946