It has been a pleasure to host Ida Wiik Sætherskar, a PhD student from Nord University, Norway during this week at the Children's Voices Centre. Ida has met many staff and students at CSU, observed children at the Bathurst Early Childhood Intervention Service (BECIS) and presented a talk attended by 30 people (online and in person).
Ida's presentation was titled "Early Childhood Education Teachers' Judgments of Children's Language Skills". Here is her presentation abstract:
Ida Wiik Sætherskar is a speech and language therapist and a PhD research fellow at the Faculty of Education and Arts, Nord University. Ida´s project is a part of the research project SpedAims Kohort, Centre for Research on Special Needs Education and Inclusive Practice (SpedAims). In her doctoral project, Ida focuses her research on early childhood education (ECE) teachers’ judgments of children’s language skills. Successful early language development is vital to children´s later literacy development, education and well-being outcomes, highlighting the importance of early identification and early intervention for children with language delay or language disorders. ECE teachers are in a prime position to identify and support these children, further emphasizing the need for accuracy in judgments of children’s language skills as a part of their competence in supporting children’s language development. Ida will discuss current knowledge about the efficacy of ECE teachers' judgments of and ability to assess children's language and implications of her findings for further study as well as for practice.
