CVC2026 starts tomorrow. Many of our CVC affiliates travelled to Bathurst to participate in the conference face-to-face (one travelled over 1200 kms!).
Today (Monday 31st August) we met for afternoon tea, a celebration of CVC books, a tour of the campus, then dinner together in The Treehouse.
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| Carolyn, Kate F, and Helen in The Beehive |
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| Dr Carolyn Gregoric at The Treehouse |
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| Afternoon tea at The Treehouse |
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| CVC book celebration |
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| Dinner at The Treehouse |
To begin the Children's Voices Conference 2026 (CVC2026) live events, CVC hosted a Children's Voices Centre Book Celebration to celebrate books, edited books and special issues by CVC authors.
What a feast!
CVC EDITED BOOKS
CVC SPECIAL ISSUES
Our Children's Advisory Group is so creative!
Theme: Creating a more inclusive world for children
Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to answer these 6 impossible questions. Each one comes with its own challenges, and your answers will all come together to make an amazing video! Remember, the fate of this children’s advisory group contribution to the CVC2026 conference is in your hands!
The answers will be recorded on the top tier spy cameras (the ones that are built into your parent’s smart phones) in a landscape format (parents, please film the videos horizontally not vertically). It will then be sent to mission control (my house), where it will be thoroughly analysed and compiled into a spectacular collaborative video message before the big day arrives!
Here are your 6 impossible tasks:
• What is your name, what country are you on, and one thing about you?
• What does creating a more inclusive world for children mean?
• When do you feel included?
• What makes you feel like you are not included?
• What have you/others done in the past to make people feel included?
• What do you think children/grown-ups need to do to make sure everyone is included?
• Why does it matter to you to be part of the children’s advisory group and to contribute to informing the work of the government in Australia and the work of governments and organisations around the world (like the World Health Organization and the United Nations)?
These answers are due by the 18th of August 2026 (18/8/26), please send them to xxx
Written and not illustrated by Super-secret-spy McInconspicuousFace (xxx).
I am so excited to welcome back Dr Audrey (Cen) Wang to work with me for 2 days/week as a statistician on our Catholic Education Tasmania research grant. Audrey has published so many important papers with our team. It will be wonderful to work with her again.
I enjoy my mentoring conversations. Today Prof Jillian Marsh and I discussed many interesting issues.
The following paper was accepted for publication today. The paper was based on collaborative work undertaken during my Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Professor Visiting Fellowship to University of Bristol, UK. Congratulations to Amy Davies who lead the paper.
Davies, A., Seifert, M., Southby, L., Harding, S., McLeod, S., & Wren, Y. (2026, in press August). It’s not just speech: Association between intelligibility, language and communication skills in children born with cleft palate +/- lip. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology.
Here is the abstract
Purpose: Children born with cleft palate, with or without cleft lip (CP+/-L), are more likely to demonstrate problems with intelligibility. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between language and communication skills and intelligibility in 3-year-old children born with CP+/-L using questionnaire data from mothers of 674 children in a longitudinal prospective cohort study.
Method: A Kruskal-Wallis test was used to explore differences in intelligibility (Intelligibility in Context Scale (ICS)) between categories of children’s language and communication skills (communication domain of the Ages and Stages-3 questionnaire (ASQ-3)). Associations were further explored using Tobit regression analyses adjusting for confounders cleft subtype, syndromic status, Robin sequence, biological sex, socio-economic status and child’s age.
Results: The Kruskal-Wallis test showed strong evidence (χ2(2) = 131.7, p < .001) to suggest a difference in average ICS score between the three ASQ-3 categories of further assessment needed, monitoring needed and on schedule. The fully adjusted model suggested children who were categorised as needing to be monitored would score 0.69 points lower on the average ICS score compared to their peers who were “on schedule” (β= -0.69; 95%CIs= -0.98, -0.41; p < .001). Average ICS score was estimated to reduce by approximately 1.14 points for children needing further assessment compared to children who were on schedule (β= -1.14; 95%CIs= -1.36, -0.92; p < .001).
Conclusions: Language and communication skills in children born with CP+/-L are associated with their intelligibility. Variability amongst individual children is likely. A multiple-risk model should be considered when planning interventions for children whose intelligibility is below expectations.
This afternoon, as part of our research grant with Catholic Education Tasmania, I spent 3.5 hours having 15 minute appointments with Tasmanian speech pathologists about kindergarten students attending CET schools who have learned English as another language. Felicity Laurence and I were impressed at how the speech pathologists had taken on board the information provided last year at the CET workshop and also our free online materials from the Multilingual Children's Speech website. This year, they had more evidence of incorporating knowledge about specific language's phonology into their reports and decision making. Congratulations colleagues.
Our data for the Catholic Education Tasmania Speech Sound Disorder (CeTasSSD) grant is coming in thick and fast - so now we are gearing up for statistical analysis. This morning I met with Dr Nicola Ivory to plan our work on the Intelligibility in Context Scale data.
CVC directors, Tamara, Kathy and I have been working hard on the next CVC newsletter so that it is ready for sharing at our CVC2026 conference next week. We have done SO MUCH since the last newsletter (Oct 2025).
The Children's Voices Conference (CVC2026) is a great place to be able to share the collaborative research we have been undertaking. Here are the papers I am involved in:
Everything is coming together for CVC2026.
Today Emma Hayes and I almost finished the CVC2026 conference proceedings and preparation of the documentation for Janelle Bateman to start uploading our conference presentations to the CSU YouTube channel. Thanks to Dr Carolyn Gregoric and Amy Whitfield for the preparation, subtitling, and quality control for all of the conference presentations.
Today I learned these interesting statistics from DVC-R about CSU's HDR (PhD, MPhil) students:
We have 1212 registrations from 63 countries:
Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, Fiji, Finland, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Lesotho, Lithuania, Macao, Malawi, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Türkiye, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States and Vietnam.
CVC2026 keynotes - what a lineup!
Hooray! Our Children's Voices Centre kitchen in The Treehouse is FINISHED. It has taken years of work. Thank you to the philanthropist who funded the building works, and Emma Hayes (CVC) and Blake (CSU) who oversaw the project.
Thank you to Prof Jason White for his update about the Australian Research Council's revised grant program
Listening to Children with Diverse Communication Abilities
Child Language Teaching and Therapy Special Issue (2026, volume 42) - Q1 journal
Guest editors: Sharynne McLeod and Holly McAlister*, Children’s Voices Centre, Charles Sturt University, Australia
CLTT Editors: Judy Clegg and Victoria Joffe
https://journals.sagepub.com/home/clt
The entire special issue contains 17 papers written by people from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, UK
Here is my 2-minute video summary of the special issue: https://charlessturt.zoom.us/rec/share/M6k58N7ZaAZsqNcKTpefR9bRT62DNI-tKN-5ov_9PT6h-6bh4j1K79Knb6d1Y7IO.WKRpGEL_LBPtpYv7
View in Zoom
It has been great to mentor and include so many CVC staff/affiliates/adjuncts/HDR students in the special issue:
*bolded text = CVC affiliate/adjunct/HDR student
Our new kitchen is nearly finished. Thank you Emma Hayes for your oversight of this important project in the life of CVC.
Over the past 2 weeks we have been reviewing all submitted CVC2026 presentations, particularly checking them for ethical approvals and image source permission. We only have 7 more videos to review and 15 more to upload. The others are done.
A huge thank you to Carolyn, Amy, Emma and our CVC scientific review committee (esp. Arifa Rahman, Suzanne Hopf, Belinda Downey, Lindsay Smith, Jo Grimmond, Helen Blake, Katrina Gersbach, Sarah Bartlett, Kate Crowe, Holly McAlister, Kate Margetson, Alam Hossain, Kasey Garrison and Lysa Dealtry, Carolyn Gregoric, Sharynne McLeod)
It is such a joy to mentor our CVC affilates. Today over lunch Ros Cox and I constructed her book proposal on a napkin. This book is going to change the world and save children's lives. I can't wait to read it!
Today we had another meeting of the people involved in the analysis of the Children Draw Playing data focusing on the question that children answered: "How is play good for the world?"
We had a great conversation about authorship and finishing writing journal articles
Margetson, K., Tran, V. H., Blake, H. L., Verdon, S., Phạm, B., & McLeod, S. (2026). Speech and language of Vietnamese-English-speaking children and their families. In E. Babatsouli, Y. F. Holt, & K. N. Washington (Eds.), Linguistic varieties in North America: A guide for speech and language practitioners. (pp. 308-320) Multilingual Matters. https://doi.org/10.21832/BABATS2682
A wonderful collaboration based on our VietSpeech research. The best thing about this chapter is that all of the co-authors are my ex-PhD students :) How lovely to see ongoing collaborations between Kate, Van, Helen, Sarah and Ben
Tonight we had our 2-monthly meeting with Dr Mél Gréaux from the World Health Organization to advance the collaborative project with the Children's Voices Centre
AIM: To advance health equity for persons with disabilities by understanding the experience and perspectives of children with disabilities in the health sector
We are at the 18-month point of our 2-year project - so there are a lot of excellent results being discussed as we are finalising the presentations and publications from our research. We were pleased that Mél summarised the meeting with the sentence "As always, it's massively impressive". Thanks Mél - we really enjoy working with you too.
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| Sharynne McLeod, Mél Gréaux, Kate Freire, Carolyn Gregoric, Belinda Downey, Helen L. Blake |
Today's CVC lunchtime seminar was by Lyndall Holstein from the CSU Library.
She shared these useful resources:
Open Educational Resources (OER)
Today we had two celebrations of The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World with 61 of our our chapter authors. We had one celebration at 8am and one at 6pm AEST in order to accommodate the world's timezones. THANK YOU TO OUR WONDERFUL MULTILINGUAL MINDS.
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| OUP chapter authors - Celebration 1 |
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| OUP chapter authors - Celebration 2 (photo 1) |
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| OUP chapter authors - Celebration 2 (photo 2) |
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| OUP chapter authors attending celebration 1 (yellow) and 2 (blue) |
The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World (McLeod, 2026)
Oxford University Press websites:
Google books sample:
Charles Sturt University associated sites:
CELEBRATION 1 – 21 ATTENDEES
Wed 12 August 2026 – 8am AEST
CELEBRATION 2 – 39 ATTENDEES
Wed 12 August 2026 – 6pm AEST
22. Anna-Leena Martikainen
23. Annette Fox-Boyer
24. Spyros Armostis (Σπύρος Αρμοστής)
25. Anniek van Doornik
26. Avivit Ben-David
27. Ben Phạm
28. Ciara O'Toole
29. Dana Buntová
30. Diana Ignatova
31. Elaine Ballard
32. Ewa Czaplewska
33. Ghada Khattab
34. Hadeel Ayyad
35. Hanne Gram Simonsen
36. Helen Blake
37. Helen Grech
38. Jennifer Boer
39. Katri Saaristo-Helin
40. Lakshmi Venkatesh
41. Leah Gedalyovich
42. Marit Carolin Clausen
43. Martina Ozbič
44. Melanie Basinger
45. Olebeng Mahura
46. Paula Fikkert
47. Paulina Zydorowicz
48. Salome Geertsema
49. Tamer Abou-Elsaad
50. Rowena Garcia
51. Saira Ambreen
52. Sara Lavaggi
53. Sari Kunnari
54. Savitha Vadakkanthara Hariharan
55. Sharynne McLeod
56. Silke Fricke
57. Sofia Strömbergsson
58. Spyros Armostis
59. Taelo Qhala
60. Thora Masdottir
61. Yvonne Wren
Apologies
We live in interesting times.
Here is the segment of a discussion from the ASHA Board of Directors Meeting this week as provided in the full report Linda I. Rosa-Lugo, President, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association:
"GENERATIVE DISCUSSION ASHA’s BOD conducts generative discussions during each BOD meeting. At the August meeting, Chief Staff Officer for Science and Research Margaret Rogers facilitated a generative discussion on the topics of the American Instability, Splintered Society, Rejection of Expertise, and Declining Trust, with a focus on how ASHA, audiologists and SLPs, and academic programs might prepare for a future that has been heavily influenced by these persistent trends. They discussed the strain on America’s rules-based democratic system, noting that increasing polarization and distrust may be pushing the country beyond political gridlock toward potential institutional breakdowns. The Board also discussed the ways Americans are increasingly self-segregating across multiple dimensions, including political affiliation, economic status, educational attainment, social relationships, consumer spending, media consumption, and geography. They noted that political, economic, and technological trends are contributing to these divisions. The discussion included how these developments could create a more uncertain and insecure operating environment for the Association and the members. The Board discussed trends related to these topics to consider their future impact, to guide future decision-making, and to help identify future challenges to the Association’s mission, academic preparation, professional practice, and service delivery."
I was invited by Cultural & Community Services at Bathurst Regional Council to speak to their team as part of their ongoing professional development and sector engagement program. It was as wonderful opportunity to speak about the Children's Voices Centre and all of the fantastic research, professional development and children's advocacy work we are doing in Bathurst and around the world. My presentation was held in the Motor Racing Museum on Mt Panorama and the following people were invited:
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| Sharynne with Patou Clerc, Manager of Library Services |
Finally - the day has come for us to get a new child-safe kitchen for The Treehouse. Thank you to the philanthropic donor who funded this through CSU Advancement.
Here are some demolition photos
What a team! Our Children's Voices Centre team meets every week and achieves so much. Today we focused on our upcoming CVC conference, email compliance, newsletter, rebuilding our kitchen, visit to UoW last week etc.
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| Sharynne McLeod, Emma Hayes, Carolyn Gregoric, Kathy Cologon, Amy Whitfield, Tamara Cumming |
Working with colleagues from across the world on World Health Organization committees means that there are a number of meetings at inconvenient times of the day.
Early this morning we had the first meeting of Workstream 4, Subcommittee 3 of the World Health Organization Disability Health Equity Network. We discussed our plans for advancing disability health equity research and dissemination/translation.
I mentioned that I am working on developing a new special issue for advancing disability health equity research.
I also learned from my colleagues about some great work that they are doing with people with disabilities.
I have been involved in guest editing a number of special issues including:
This afternoon I had a great exploratory conversation with Dr Evangelia Kyritsi, a colleague in Greece, who contacted us about undertaking research together to support children with diverse communication abilities during wildfires/bushfires. CVC affiliates have undertaken a number of projects that are relevant
Relevant research by CVC affiliates:
Speech Pathology Australia has featured us on their website! https://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/
