October 6, 2026

Visiting Vietnam to celebrate 25th anniversary of the Faculty of Special Education at Ha Noi National University of Education

I was invited to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Faculty of Special Education at Ha Noi National University of Education in Viet Nam. A/Prof Ben Pham was my CSU PhD student, received a special awared because she has worked in then been the head of the Speech, Language and Hearing Division (now Communication Disorders) for 25 years. Dr Helen Blake and I were treated as very honoured guests. During the visit I presented the following:

  • Keynote address at the International Scientific Conference co-hosted by Hanoi National University of Education and  UNICEF Vietnam with the theme "Special Education in the Context of Globalization: Innovation - Integration - Sustainable Development." My keynote address was titled "Building Vietnamese children’s speech, language and communication for a strong society"(October 3, 2026)
  • Honoured guest at 25th anniversary of Faculty of Special Education at Ha Noi National University of Education where A/Prof Ben Pham received a recognition reward from the Ministry of Education for contribution in the field of special education in the country for 25 years (October 4, 2026)
  • HNUE’s ethics council invited 2.5 hour lecture: "Ethical considerations in conducting research with children" presented to approx 200 PhD candidates, masters students, and faculty across the entire university (October 2, 2026)
  • 1-day workshop titled "Children’s speech assessment and intervention   What works? What’s new?   What’s the evidence?" presented by Dist Prof Sharynne  McLeod, Dr Helen L. Blake, A/Prof Ben Pham to 90 speech and language therapists and special education teachers (October 5, 2026)  
  • Honoured guest at VietSpeech Edu, Ha Noi (October 6, 2026) 

As an invited keynote presenter, my paper will be published in English in the peer-reviewed Journal of Contemporary Educational Policies and Practices (JCEPP) (https://jcepp.org/index.php/journal)

Congratulations to the Trinh Foundation for their work supporting the profession of speech and language therapy in Vietnam over so many years (I first visited Vietnam as a volunteer in 2011). It was great to be with Carla and Jemima who were visiting from Australia representing Trinh Foundation at these events.