I have just finished a call with Briony Vogan, Director, Strategic Infrastructure, Division of Finance (previously Briony Cottam from Campus Master Planning). We can use the name “The Treehouse”!!! We have been working on this for a couple of years! Hooray! She will get the CSU maps (FM Central), and the signage updated. Thanks Briony.
 |
| Briony Vogan and Sharynne |
Today was the next meeting of our data analysis team to analyse the Children Draw Playing data from Mongolia. There are a number of Children's Voices Centre teams undertaking the analysis of the 200 drawings.
Today Dr Carolyn Gregoric and I met with Prof Jillian Marsh from SIAS to discuss synergies between CVC and her work. Welcome to CSU Prof Marsh!
This week I have met with my PhD students - Sarah Bartlett (co-supervised with Carolyn Gregoric) and Holly McAlister (co-supervised with Suzanne Hopf who is the primary supervisor). They are both undertaking important work that changes the lives of children in Australia and Fiji.
Sarah has just completed an intensive period of data collection over three different sites/cities where families of toddlers received 16-weeks of intervention. She is excited about the findings - including what goes unsaid, is missing, hesitant and uncomfortable data - that may be captured in a post qualitative analysis.
 |
| Sarah, Sharynne and Carolyn |
At the moment Holly is undertaking data analysis with a team of speech pathologists from Fiji and writing an invited chapter about diagnosis of speech sound disorder in children across the world.
I am also working with Holly as guest editor of a special issue of Child Language Teaching and Therapy. We have had over 20 articles submitted for the special issue! This activity has been very valuable for the Children's Voices Centre since 17 CVC affiliates have submitted 5 papers and 8 CVC affiliates have reviewed papers.
PhD students undertake important work.
 |
| Holly, Sharynne and Suzanne |
I was interested to read this paper as it informs what we write in the intervention chapters of the second edition of our Children's Speech book (McLeod & Baker)
Merkel-Walsh, R., Carey, D., Burnside, A., Grime, D., Turkich, D., Tseng, R. J., & Smart, S. (2025). Effectiveness of orofacial myofunctional therapy for speech sound disorders in children: A systematic review. International Journal of Orofacial Myology and Myofunctional Therapy, 51(1), 4. https://www.mdpi.com/2694-2526/51/1/4
Here is the key takeaway "Findings from high quality studies showed no improvement to speech that
could be directly attributed to OMT, and lower quality studies yielded
mixed results. This review found no conclusive evidence supporting the
use of OMT as a standalone treatment for the effective remediation of
SSDs."
Here is the full abstract
Orofacial myofunctional therapy (OMT) is an intervention approach used to remediate orofacial myofunctional disorders (OMDs). OMDs are abnormal patterns involving the oral and orofacial musculature that can subsequently interfere with the normal growth, development, or function of orofacial structures, including speech production. Historically, articulation therapy is used to remediate speech sound disorders (SSDs). Currently, there is a dearth of literature on the use of OMT to treat non-developmental (organic) SSDs in children. The aim of this systematic review is to examine the effectiveness of OMT in treating organic SSDs in children and adolescents between 4 and 18 years of age. A search of five electronic databases (ProQuest, Scopus, Ovid, CINAHL, and Embase) was conducted, including backward (identifying and reviewing references from earlier studies from sources) and forward searching (reviewing newer studies that have cited a source). Only primary research including OMT with post-treatment outcome measures for speech production were included. Thirteen studies were reviewed, including a total of 397 participants between 4 and 17 years of age. A range of study designs, diagnoses, and intervention approaches were discussed. Studies yielded mixed results on the effectiveness of OMT to treat organic SSDs. OMT alone, and in combination with articulation therapy, was not found to be more effective than articulation therapy alone. The methodological quality of the studies ranged from limited to strong. Findings from high quality studies showed no improvement to speech that could be directly attributed to OMT, and lower quality studies yielded mixed results. This review found no conclusive evidence supporting the use of OMT as a standalone treatment for the effective remediation of SSDs. This is attributed to significant variability in speech outcomes, small sample sizes, limited comparison groups, diverse participant diagnoses, and inconsistent methodologies and treatment protocols, yielding mixed results. In addition, while the term OMT was used in the papers to designate treatment methodology, an analysis of the exercise descriptions revealed that some reported OMT exercises were non-speech oral motor exercises (NSOMEs) and oral motor therapies. Overall, many of the techniques utilized across studies did not provide speech-like movements in their therapeutic interventions based on their description. Finally, traditional articulation therapy, including speech drills to work on articulation disorders, was not included in many of the included studies. SLPs using OMT as a modality would typically combine this with articulation practice to treat the SSD. This study highlights the need for robust future studies including prospective cohort studies to compare OMT, combined OMT and articulation therapy, and articulation therapy alone to provide clearer guidance for future clinical practice.
We meet weekly with the Catholic Education Tasmania team (Felicity, Lisa and Udari) regarding our population study of speech sound disorders (SSD). We looked at de-identified data of the Intelligibility in Context Scale from 1,133 4-to 5-year-olds today. 27 control (typically developing) children and many children with suspected SSD have received a DEAP assessment. This is a large and important study.
This morning I was interviewed by Noah Secomb, Political Reporter in Canberra for the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA) for the Pillar to Post podcast. The topic of the podcast was motivated by the Australian government reducing students' HECS debts in parliament yesterday. Noah wanted to discuss more broadly how much should higher education cost by interviewing me as an example of someone who benefited from free higher education and who advocated for my PhD students.
Here is the podcast: https://omny.fm/shows/pillar-to-post/relief-for-student-debts-opens-the-door-to-further-university-reform
This morning some of the CVC affiliates were reflecting on whether using parents as proxies for children's perspectives is enough. Here are a few quantitative studies I have been involved in that compare persapectives of children, parents, and professionals’
McCormack, J., McLeod, S., & Crowe, K. (2019). What do children with speech sound disorders think about their talking? Seminars in Speech and Language, 40(2), 94–104. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0039-1677760
...This paper draws on data from the Sound Start Study in Australia to explore the attitudes toward talking of 132 preschool-aged children with SSD and the relationship between children's attitudes, speech accuracy, and parent-reported intelligibility and participation. The study revealed most of the children with SSD had a positive attitude toward talking. There was a significant relationship between children's attitudes toward talking and speech accuracy. Furthermore, there was a significant relationship between speech accuracy and parents' perceptions of intelligibility and participation. However, there was no significant relationship between children's attitudes and parents' perceptions. These results highlight similarities and differences between attitudes and experiences of preschool-aged children, their performance on clinical measures, and their parents' perceptions, indicating the need for SLPs to consider each of these areas during assessment and intervention...
...This study aims to improve our knowledge of how young children with speech sound disorders (SSD) perceive their own speech and communication in comparison with typically developing (TD) children and how these perceptions relate to parental judgment of communicative participation, intelligibility in different contexts, and an expert measure of children's speech accuracy (percentage of consonants correct in syllable initial position [PCCI]). Participants were 111 Dutch-speaking children (48–89 months old): 65 with SSD and 46 who were TD. Children's self-reports on the Dutch version of the Communication Attitude Test for Preschool and Kindergarten Children Who Stutter (KiddyCAT-NL) were compared (a) between SSD and TD groups and (b) with the parents' ratings….Statistical analysis revealed that young children in the SSD group perceived their speech and communication differently than children in the TD group. Only in the SSD group was there a moderate positive correlation between speech accuracy and intelligibility in context and only a weak correlation with the child's perception of speech and communication. Parents' and children's perceptions were weakly correlated. Information on children's perception of their own speech is complementary to information obtained from the parents and SLPs' formal assessment of speech accuracy. To fully understand the impact of SSD, it is therefore important to actively elicit and include children's perspectives on speech and communication.
This morning A/Prof Kathy Cologon and Dr Carolyn Gregoric lead the first meeting for Children's Voices Centre affiliates focusing on new projects about "Widening children’s participation in research". Twenty-one people indicate their interest and 10 people were able to join this morning.
Each person provided an overview of the research they had undertaken with, for and about children. WOW! The past, present and future research is inspiring. We will work together to plan the next steps which may include a scoping review and a Delphi study.
The following paper just has been accepted for publication
McCormack, J., Cronin, A., McLeod, S., Ireland, M., Wang, C., & Tiong, C. (2025, accepted July). Children’s drawings of intervention for childhood apraxia of speech (CAS): Place, people, activity, and emotion. Child Language Teaching and Therapy.
It is one of the outcomes from our work on our grant funded by Once Upon a Time to consider perspectives of children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) who were undertaking DTTC intervention.
Here is the abstract:
Sourcing and including the views of children in speech and language therapy aligns with Articles 12 and 13 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This research explored the perspectives of 30 children (3;9 – 8;7 years) with childhood apraxia of speech regarding their experiences of Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing intervention. Children lived in the United States or Australia and had engaged in one of three intervention studies exploring: delivery by their parent or speech and language therapist (SLT); delivery in high or low dose; and delivery in massed or distributed format. Children shared their perspectives of intervention through drawing a picture of themselves during intervention, describing their drawings, and identifying emojis responding to questions about intervention. Five focal points were identified in the drawings: Place (73.33%: environment, intervention materials, and transitions), People (73.33%: body parts and facial expressions, relationships and connection, and sense of self), Activity (20.00%: words, talking, and listening), Emotion (53.33%: positive and negative), and Not Talking (6.67%). Many participants felt happy about “speech practice” ( J 62.50%) and who did speech practice with them ( J 62.50%) but were divided in how they felt about the number of times ( J 33.3%) and the length of time ( J 29.17%) of speech practice. Children’s perspectives can be considered when designing and delivering intervention.
Here are two of the insightful drawings by the children involved in the project showing their involvement in intervention. These drawings will be included in the publication. Each drawing shows the child on the left and their speech-language pathologist on the right. Note the environment (table in figure 1 and door, table, chair, stickers in figure 2).
 |
Carolyn Gregoric shared this today from the CSU Research workshop:
Impact (or benefit) is defined as the “demonstrable contribution that research makes…beyond contributions to academia”. Impact is typically categorised, and researchers are often asked to address one or more impact categories in funding applications. Widely recognised impact categories include economic, societal, cultural, environmental, public policy, knowledge, and health, with others identified by organisations in accordance with their specific priorities/goals. Translating academic research to impact/s is important because it:
· Optimises the use of public funds that support most research activities.
· Is rewarding and beneficial for individual researchers.
· Builds institutional profiles, reputations, rankings and income.
Monday: Kathy, Tamara, Sharynne
We began with an acknowledgment of country from Kathy's children on Darkinjung Country thinking of the green and blue of the land and the sky. At the end of the day six kangaroos on Wiradjuri Country bounded past the window of The Treehouse!
We focused on two drivers for our research:
We discussed past, current and future research projects, publications (books, special issues), and grants.
Children's Voices
Throughout the day we were able to chat with children presenting their vision for the world. They exhorted us to "be more careful with small things" and discussed topics such as homelessness, biodiversity, technology (AI, holograms etc.), and respecting Aboriginal people. Dreams for the future included "Everyone is kind. You can't get sick or hurt. Magic is real. If you get lost you can teleport to your family. You can eat paper." They outlined examples where "the progress we have made throughout history is astonishing" (clean water, roads, respect for people), giving us hope for future progress.
The children also gave us great ideas for names for sections of The Treehouse that are currently unnamed (we currently have The Billabong, The Nest, The Beehive, The Flowerpatch). Ideas included The Canopy. The Saplings. We need more tadpoles.
 |
| Ideas for The Treehouse from children with Kathy, Sharynne and Tamara listening |
We met with Carly Evans and Justin Williams from CSU Advancement who are profiling the Children's Voices Centre and garnering support for our research and vision. They proposed a high profile event called UNHEARD with key speakers from the CSU alumni. They also identified a number of funding possibilities and key people to connect with.
 |
| Justin Williams, Sharynne, Tamara, Kathy, Carly Evans |
Tuesday: Lorraine, Carolyn, Tamara, Kathy, Sharynne
Our whole CVC staff group went through the 12 key performance indicators (KPIs) set for the CVC in our Business Plan and worked through our gains over the past 6 months and what we need to do in the next six months (see below).
 |
| Lorraine, Tamara, Sharynne, Kathy and Carolyn |
Voice of the Child Toolkit (MCRI) and Voice of the Child Framework (Australian Government/Griffith Uni)
In the middle of the day, we joined the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) webinar who launched the Voice of the Child Toolkit:
One of the speakers was Janaya Cox who spoke about the Voice of the Child Framework launched by the Federal goverment.Wednesday: Kathy, Tamara and Sharynne
We continued our planing and discussions with two sets of visitors during our day. First Dr Emmaline Lear from the Research Office and second PVCR Indigenous Prof Tony Dreise and Nicole Simone.
 |
| Lorraine Bennet, Sharynne McLeod, A/Prof Tamara Cumming, A/Prof Kathy Cologon, Prof Tony Dreise, and Nicole Simone |
 |
| Dr Emmaline Lear, A/Prof Tamara Cumming, Prof Sharynne McLeod, A/Prof Kathy Cologon |
Throughout our planing week we continued work to build The Treehouse as the physical centre of the Children's Voices Centre to support our resaerch with children. We received a $30K philanthropic grant to support this transformation and appreciated the work already completed with this money - planning the next steps.
We celebrated the achievements we have made to date with our CVC key performance indicators for 2025. To date our CVC affiliates have 101 unique entries in CRO (125 entries) including: published 2 books, 4 chapters, 51 journal articles, and 2 theses.
The following collaborative research projects are currently underway at the Children's Voices Centre for CVC affiliates and adjuncts to collaborate as editors, authors, reviewers, data analysts, etc.:
We have a program of visiting scholars where two scholars come and collaborate with our affiliates. Here are our 2025 scholars:
We have had a number of international PhD students visit, and look forward to welcoming more:
This morning Jane McCormack and I met - and created a child version of the Intelligibility in Context Scale by considering all of the work we have done together on the ICS, SPAA-C, Children Draw Talking, and other research listening to children. We will pilot it before using it in research. We have been discussing this for a long time - but this morning we worked out exactly what it should look like :)
The following important article has just been published:
McLeod, S., Harrison, L. J., McMahon, C., Wang, C., & Evans, J. R. (2025). Parent-reported speech and language in early childhood is an early indicator of Indigenous Australian children's literacy and numeracy outcomes. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 56(3), 730-746. https://doi.org/10.1044/2025_LSHSS-23-00200
Here is the abstract
Purpose:
The aim of this study was to longitudinally investigate parent-reported children's speech and language in early childhood as an early indicator of Indigenous Australians' school-age educational outcomes.
Method:
Participants were 1,534 children from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC) whose parents reported on expressive and receptive speech and language concern (SLC) at 3–5 years using the Parents' Evaluation of Developmental Status. A total of 467 children (30.4%) were identified as having SLC, of whom 308 had only expressive SLC, 65 had only receptive SLC, and 81 had both expressive and receptive SLC. Educational outcomes included (a) National Assessment Program–Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests (Grade 3, 8–9 years), (b) teacher-reported literacy and numeracy on the Academic Rating Scale (ARS; 8–9, 9–10 years), and (c) research officer–administered Progressive Achievement Tests in Reading (PAT-Reading; 6–7, 7–8, 8–9, 9–10 years) and Progressive Achievement Tests in Mathematics (PAT-Maths; 8–9, 9–10 years).
Results:
After controlling for covariates (child age, sex, having hearing problems, having a disability, speaking an Indigenous language, parent education, family life events, community socioeconomic status, and remoteness), SLC was associated with significantly lower scores on all NAPLAN subtests (Reading, Writing, Spelling, Grammar, Numeracy), teacher-rated ARS for Language and Literacy (9–10 years), and PAT-Reading (6–7 years) and PAT-Maths (9–10 years). Subgroup comparisons indicated that children with both expressive and receptive SLC had the poorest outcomes on NAPLAN and ARS subtests.
Conclusion:
Parental reporting of Indigenous Australian children's SLC in early childhood is an important early indicator of education outcomes at school, indicating the importance of families throughout a child's trajectory of learning and development.
A/Prof Kathy Cologon is having Koffee with Kathy sessions to meet each of the Children's Voices Centre affiliates in her role as Associate Director. This morning I had a wonderful Koffee with Kathy session where we were able to update one another about all the work we have been doing for the CVC.
This evening Prof Elise Baker and I continued our work on the second edition of our book Children's Speech. This edition will be published by Oxford University Press. So much has happened since the first edition was published in 2017 - there is a lot to update.
At the Children's Voices Centre we have a number of research opportunities where CVC affiliates to collaborate. Dr Carolyn Gregoric is leading the analysis of the Children Draw Playing data presented at the ECV2024 conference and available online in the Children Draw Playing Global Online Galleries: https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/early-childhood-voices-conference-2024/children-draw-playing/
We have four teams who are spending 20-30 minutes per drawing to answer 60+ questions to create the data for analysis. Today our team worked for 1.5 hours and analysed three drawings from the Mongolian dataset. We had rich discussions and were impressed by what the children could convey in their drawings.
Today was Charles Sturt University's Foundation Day. Each year staff are invited to come together for coffee and cupcakes. It is a great time to chat with key people
 |
| Distinguished Professor Sharynne McLeod, Professor Renée Leon (Vice Chancellor), Bruce Andrews (CSU Media), Professor Zahid Islam, (Associate Dean (Research), Faculty of Business, Justice & Behavioural Sciences), and Dr Sharon Schoenmaker (Chief of Staff, Office of the Vice-Chancellor) |
 |
| Orange cupcakes |
This morning Cathie Matthews and I discussed her examiners' feedback for her Masters of Philosophy. She is close to finalising her thesis for resubmission. Congratulations Cathie.
This morning I enjoyed meeting with Prof Lynn Williams from East Tennessee State University (ETSU). She introduced me to her intern, Anna Hill, who will be applying for grad school soon. Anna has been working with Lynn on some of our current research projects.
Today Charles Sturt University launched the Asia Pacific Hub for the Community-Based Global Learning Collaborative.
We are working with Adam Lavelle from CSU to create an online course for the Speech Assessment of Children's Home Language(s) (SACHL)
https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-assessments/sachl
Today we spent time focusing on partners to head towards the SPRINT process in August.
Sustainable Development Goals - Speech Pathology Australia podcast
The Speech Pathology Australia Sustainable Development Goals podcast has been released: https://soundcloud.com/speechpathologyaustralia/rebroadcast-un-sustainable-development-goals-s7e19?si=cee835ba2d994b928d6381f9823712b8&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
Resources:
I have had a wonderful week on leave with my young friends (aka members of our Australian advisory panel). As well as exploring the beach and playing games, one of our activities this week has been to complete the Children Draw Health activity for the Children's Voices Centre.
The children created pictures that answered the following questions:
Submissions and details here: https://csu.submittable.com/submit/b5678c57-814b-493e-8579-cc4ddc2df88c/children-draw-health
After 18 months our research project with OAMS has ended. This week we said farewell to Emily-Jane Woodhead as our amazing research assistant (0.4FTE) and wrapped up our research.
Throughout the project we purchased books and toys to use with the children during the research. Now we are able to donate them to OAMS for future children and families to use them. The books were donated to four Little Libraries as well as to some of the elders and families who participated.
This year, the Charles Sturt Foundation are profiling the Children's Voices Centre as a focus for philanthropic donations to advance research and deliver meaningful change across our communities. Page 27-28 of the 2024 Donor Impact Report provides details: https://issuu.com/csu4/docs/2024_donor_impact_report_-_charles_sturt_foundatio
Recently, the Children's Voices Centre received a $30K donation to support the development of The Treehouse as the site for the Children's Voices Centre. Justin Williams from CSU Advancement was instrumental in coordinating this. We are extremely grateful for this generous donation that has enabled us to make the building (1451 on the Bathurst campus) safe and fun for children, families, staff and visitors to the Children's Voices Centre.
We are now up to the fun part of building The Treehouse. The rug and lounge have arrived for our Billabong room.
Sarah Bartlett has been working hard running Hanen language groups with three groups of children and families in Sydney and the Central West. This week the data collection finishes. She has worked so well with the families - and it was a pleasure to discuss their gains during her PhD meeting today.
