Hooray! Ethics approval

We were very pleased to receive approval from the CSU Human Research Ethics Committee today for our research with Catholic Education Tasmania. Now we can begin. Hooray!

Accepted journal article - Methods of Diagnosing Speech Sound Disorders in Multilingual Children

Our manuscript titled "Methods of Diagnosing Speech Sound Disorders in Multilingual Children" has just been accepted for publication in the "Changemaker" Special Forum for the Q1 journal Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. It came about because our session at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association convention in 2024 was one of the few that was awarded "changemaker" status - so we were invited to write up our submission. Thanks to Karla and Kate for leading this important paper. Here is the reference and abstract:

Washington, K. N., Crowe, K., McLeod, S., Margetson, K., Bazzocchi, N. B. M., Kokotek, L. E., van der Straten Waillet, P., Másdóttir, T., & Volhardt M. D. S., (2025, in press). Methods of diagnosing speech sound disorders in multilingual children. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools.

Purpose: Identification of speech sound disorder (SSD) in children who are multilingual is challenging for many speech-language pathologists (SLPs). This may be due to a lack of clinical resources to accurately identify SSD in multilingual children as easily as for monolingual children. The purpose of this paper is to describe features of multilingual speech acquisition, identify evidence-based resources for the differential diagnosis of SSD in speakers of under-studied language paradigms, and to demonstrate how culturally responsive practices can be achieved in different linguistic contexts.
Method: Examples of different approaches used to inform accurate diagnosis of SSD in 2- to 8-year-old multilingual children are described. The approaches used included: (a) considering adult speech models, (b) completing validation studies, and (c) streamlining evidence-informed techniques. These methods were applied across four different language paradigms in countries within the Global North and Global South (e.g., Jamaican Creole-English, Jamaica; Vietnamese-English, Australia; French and additional languages, Belgium; Icelandic-Polish, Iceland). The culturally responsive nature of approaches in each cultural/linguistic setting is highlighted as well as the broader applicability of these approaches.
Results: Findings related to dialect specific features, successful validation of tools to describe functional speech intelligibility and production accuracy, and the utility of different techniques applied in the diagnosis of SSD are outlined.
Conclusions: Culturally responsive methods offer a useful framework for guiding SLPs’ diagnostic practices. However, successful application of these practices is best operationalized at a local level in response to the linguistic, cultural, and geographic context.

Editing a new book

Our editorial team met again today to discuss the publishers' response to our submission. We have a good plan.

Indigenous children's books for our little libraries have arrived

It feels like Christmas! Boxes of children's books written by Indigenous authors have arrived. We will cover them, add identification stickers, and prepare them to distribute to the four Little Libraries at the Orange Aboriginal Medical Service. What a wonderful research project.

 

 

The Children’s Voices Centre has begun

Here is the message we have shared with CSU staff and students

Dear CSU Colleagues
The Children’s Voices Centre has begun.
https://www.csu.edu.au/research/childrens-voices-centre/home

We invite everyone from CSU who undertakes research with children, for children, and about children to register to be affiliated with the Children’s Voices Centre: https://forms.office.com/r/Rqz427LtUH. CSU staff, HDR students, and CSU adjuncts are welcome to register.

We are very happy to come and talk to your Faculty, School, or group about Children’s Voices. Contact us at CVC@csu.edu.au
 
The Children’s Voices Centre (CVC) is a beacon of innovation and inclusivity, empowering ALL children to communicate, collaborate, and create a better future for themselves and the world. Our research focusses on:
•    Children, families, and communities, and
•    Workforce and policy.
We amplify children’s voices and champion children’s communication, learning, health, and development. We conduct world-leading, transformative interdisciplinary research with global reach emphasising inclusivity, diversity, social justice, equity, capacity building, and innovation.
Our research focusses on the following themes:
•    Children’s voices
•    Children’s health
•    Children’s activities
•    Early childhood education and workforce needs
•    Multilingual children’s speech
•    Children with speech, language, and communication needs
•    [We welcome conversations about new areas of research focus]
We collaborate with:
•    People: children, families, communities, practitioners, professionals.
•    Disciplines: education (early childhood, primary, inclusive education), allied health (speech-language pathology, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, psychology, social work, paramedicine), nursing, communications, media, data science, and more
•    Organisations: government departments, universities, international and national organisations including the World Health Organization and the United Nations.
•    Settings: homes, early childhood education and care centres, schools, health and disability services, community settings, businesses, civic settings, leisure and recreation settings.
The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child guides our work to ensure children's voices are heard by those responsible for building an inclusive world for everyone.

Here are some of the opportunities in 2025 for capacity building and collaborations available to affiliates of the Children’s Voices Centre

1.    World Health Organization collaboration about children’s perspectives of health and access to healthcare services
2.    Children Draw Playing data analysis
3.    Publication opportunities
•    Special issue: Child Language Teaching and Therapy (Q1)
•    Book: Multilingual Aspects of Children’s Speech Sounds
•    Book: Early Childhood Voices: Children, families, professionals (2nd ed.)
4.    Visiting scholars (e.g., arts-based research with children)
5.    Research workshops
•    Research wellness retreat
•    CVs and track records
•    Grant writing
6.    Regular research presentations
7.    Preparation for Early Childhood Voices Conference 2026 (ECV2026)

Here is a presentation about the work of the Children’s Voices Centre:
CVC-Roadshow.mp4

https://csuprod-my.sharepoint.com/personal/pmckenzie_csu_edu_au/_layouts/15/stream.aspx?id=%2Fpersonal%2Fpmckenzie%5Fcsu%5Fedu%5Fau%2FDocuments%2FShared%2FCVC%2DRoadshow%2Emp4&amp

We welcome you to join the Children’s Voices Centre.

 

An exciting beginning for the Children's Voices Centre

It is week 1 of the academic calendar for Charles Sturt University. Today we had the opportunity to share the vision of the Children's Voices Centre with:

• Deputy Vice Chancellor Research - Prof Neena
  
• Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research Sturt Scheme members
• Associate Dean Research, Faculty of Arts and Education (FOAE) - A/Prof Matt Winslade

We also received this email this morning: "I am pleased to say that the occupation and use of Bathurst building 1451 by the Children’s Voices Centre is endorsed by Campus and Space Planning". Hooray - The Treehouse is ours!

Sharynne, Matt Winslade (ADR FOAE), Tamara Cumming

Brandon Schranzer (DFM), Sharynne, Therese King (DFM), Tamara Cumming