Visiting colleagues at The University of Hong Kong

I had a wonderful day today re-connecting with my long-term colleague Prof Carol Kit Sum To in the Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Faculty of Education at The University of Hong Kong. Carol and I first began collaborating around 2010 - and since then have had grants and published a number of papers together and have further collaborations planned:

1. To, C. K. S., Cheung, P. S. P., & McLeod, S. (2013a). A population study of children's acquisition of Hong Kong Cantonese consonants, vowels, and tones. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 56(1), 103–122. https://doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2012/11-0080)
2. To, C. K. S., Cheung, P. S. P., & McLeod, S. (2013b). The impact of extrinsic demographic factors on Cantonese speech acquisition. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 27(5), 323–338. https://doi.org/10.3109/02699206.2013.763385
3. To, C. K. S., McLeod, S., & Cheung, P. S. P. (2015). Phonetic variations and sound changes in Hong Kong Cantonese: Diachronic review, synchronic study and implications for speech sound assessment. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 29(5), 333–353. https://doi.org/10.3109/02699206.2014.1003329
4. To, C. K. S., McLeod, S., Sam, K. L., & Law, T. (2022). Predicting which children will normalize without intervention for speech sound disorders. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 65(5), 1724-1741. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-21-00444 
5. To, C. K. S., Cheung, P. S. P., & McLeod, S. (2025). English + Cantonese speech development. In S. McLeod (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of speech development in languages of the world. Oxford University Press. 
   

Prof Carol To at her speech lab

Sharynne and Carol at HKU

Carol is an Adjunct Research Professor at Charles Sturt University. 

I also met Dr Saira Ambreen, who completed her PhD with Carol in 2023 - and now is a postdoc at HKU. Saira's research has described children's acquisition of Urdu - and I have cited her work a number of times already. Saira and Carol have written a chapter on Urdu speech development in The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World. It was inspiring to spend the day with Carol and Saira. Thank you for your hospitality.

Sharynne, Carol and Dr Saira Ambreen