Collaborations with ACU

A/Prof Jane McCormack and I meet on a semi-regular basis to share and collaborate between Australian Catholic University and Charles Sturt University. We have such a rich and long-term partnership.

 

Children’s drawings of intervention for childhood apraxia of speech (CAS): Place, people, activity, and emotion

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).

 

ACU interview for SPHY406 Module 1: Human Dignity and Human Rights

This morning I was interviewed by A/Prof Jane McCormack for her subject SPHY406 Module 1: Human Dignity and Human Rights. It was a privilege to discuss this important topic.

Here are some of the questions she asked:

• Tell us a little about yourself - what motivated you to become a speech pathologist? What keeps you in the profession?
• What work are you most proud of doing? Why?
• What are "human rights"?  
• What does it mean to say that "Communication is a basic human right"?
• Why are human rights important to our work as speech pathologists?
• Tell us about your experience researching and working in the area of human rights.
• Can you provide an example of when your work has advocated for a client's human rights and a time when you have advocated for the community (eg through legislation or policy)?
• What do speech pathologists need to know/do to be advocates of human rights and human dignity?
• How can graduates be change-makers in this space?

Adjunct Professor at Australian Catholic University (ACU)

Thank you to the Australian Catholic University (ACU) who have invited me to extend my term as Adjunct Professor until 2027.

Here is what they wrote in their letter 

"Australian Catholic University’s (ACU) conferral of adjunct and honorary awards recognises the accomplishment and contribution of persons who have made or will make an outstanding contribution to the achievement of the ACU's mission, to scholarship or professional practice in one or more disciplines or professions of interest to ACU, to the life and objectives of ACU, to the society and/or the Church in ways that are aligned to the mission and vision of ACU."

Meeting with Audrey re Once Upon A Time research grant

 Today Dr Audrey Wang and I met to discuss the data from our Once Upon A Time research grant considering the experiences of children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) undertaking intensive intervention using an approach called Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing (DTTC). As a psychologist, Audrey has knowledge about children's subjective, psychological and emotional experiences, cognitive and emotional development, and children’s ability to reflect on internal experiences.

ACU Speed Session: Working with multilingual children: How can I assess speech in a language that I don't speak?

The Australian Catholic University (ACU) Allied Health speed sessions for May includes an invited presentation by Kate Margetson titled "Working with multilingual children: How can I assess speech in a language that I don't speak? 

Kate Margetson is a speech pathologist and postdoctoral research fellow at Charles Sturt University. Her PhD research focussed on assessment and differential diagnosis of speech sound disorders in bilingual Vietnamese-English speaking children. Her current research focusses on supporting speech-language pathologists to work with multilingual children, particularly when they do not speak the same language(s). Kate is a certified practicing speech-language pathologist and has worked clinically for over 10 years with multilingual children and their families in both Australia and Vietnam. She is a director of Trinh Foundation Australia which has support the development of the speech pathology profession in Vietnam.

Access the recording here: https://echo360.net.au/media/93c893a0-9748-40c5-8461-b7faf7ad52ad/public

Once Upon A Time Foundation meeting in Fort Worth, TX

Today I attended a meeting at the Once Upon A Time Foundation Fort Worth, TX to discuss our grant to consider children's perspectives of speech intervention for childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). It was a very collegial meeting to ensure high quality research is undertaken as part of their large-scale CAS intervention research agenda.

Mentoring conversations

I have really enjoyed meeting with Dr Kerry Ttofari-Eecen from Australian Catholic University over the past year. We have had regular mentoring conversations that have encompassed many areas and have opened up opportunities for research and collaborations with colleagues in Greece and Cyprus.

ACU Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Stewardship - Congratulations

Congratulations to Dr Kerry Ttofari Eecen, A/Prof Jane McCormack and the team from Australian Catholic University who have won the ACU Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Stewardship!

Details are here and copied below from the ACU website

Stewardship through knowledge sharing 15 November 2022 

The Speech Pathology Speed Sessions team has been awarded the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Stewardship.

The team, comprised of Senior Lecturer (Speech Pathology) Dr Kerry Ttofari Eecen, Senior Lecturer (Speech Pathology) Dr Kieran Flanagan, Head of Discipline (Speech Pathology) and Deputy Head (Interim), School of Allied Health NSW Associate Professor Jane McCormack and Administrative Officer Anita Drakulic, were recognised for their work coordinating a free, evidence-based and sustainable professional development program for practising speech pathologists, ACU alumni and students.

The Speed Session program was originally started as a teleconference program in 2015 by Dr Simone Arnott. Since that time, it has transformed into a series of monthly pre-recorded 30-minute web-based lectures by experts in speech-language pathology and related fields. The sessions are shared with a distribution list that has grown to more than 1800 subscribers.

Volunteers at the heart of the program Dr Kerry Ttofari Eecen is the Speed Sessions program coordinator. She said the program is made possible by the generosity of volunteer presenters.

“All the presenters are volunteers. They’re mainly from the Speech Pathology discipline at ACU, but we have also asked academics from other disciplines within ACU to present, as well as ACU Counselling and the Research Impact office. We invite external speakers from other universities and the community to present as well,” she said. Kerry said volunteer presenters are just one of the factors that make the program a strong example of stewardship. “It’s a sustainable program because we’ve set up the processes, we've set up the infrastructure and it can be used by other disciplines or departments at ACU.”

Sharing knowledge to benefit stakeholders and their clients The feedback from stakeholders has shown the program’s impact both for speech pathologists and their clients. “We receive a lot of emails and verbal feedback to our professional practice coordinators from speech pathologists in the community about how useful they find this program,” Kerry said. “They’re happy that it’s free and also that the sessions are quick so they don’t have to spend a lot of time accessing them – they’re bite sized sessions that can be accessed any time, so people can view them at their convenience.” For speech-language pathology consumers and clients, the program is also valuable, as each session is based on up-to-date research that can inform effective service provision. “Speech pathologists using evidence-based practice benefits the clients,” said Kerry.

She said the team was honoured to receive the Excellence in Stewardship Award. “The program was originally founded on the belief that, as academics, we are in a privileged position to have access to so many resources that a lot of people out there don’t have,” she said. “The founding principle was that it’s our duty as academics to share knowledge with people in the community. That’s consistent with ACU’s commitment to community service, so it’s a real honour to be recognised in this way.” Future plans to expand The monthly Speed Sessions are currently focused on speech pathology, but plans are in place to expand the program to the other allied health disciplines. “We're planning to extend the program to the whole of the School of Allied Health from next year, using the same processes,” said Kerry. If you would like to join the Speed Sessions mailing list, please contact professional.practice@acu.edu.au. 

 

Kerry kindly wrote to me:

Dear Sharynne, Since you are my mentor (and  Jane's unofficial mentor too), I thought you would be proud of the speech pathology team for getting a VC award this week. This is the program that you contributed to this year, so you are a winner too! 

Planning with A/Prof Jane McCormack at ACU

A/Prof Jane McCormack is the head of the speech pathology program at the Australian Catholic University. I am currently an Honorary Professor at ACU and am enjoying collaborating with Jane and her staff. I popped into visit Jane this week after a medical appointment. We had the opportunity to discuss the MANY projects we have together. We have enjoyed working together for over 20 years - and when we get together our brainstorming is exciting.

Sharynne and Jane at ACU North Sydney

Research Wellness Retreat - Australian Catholic University

Today I ran a Research Wellness Retreat with the speech pathology staff in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane at the Australian Catholic University in my role as Honorary Professor (Adjunct).

I used the concept of a wellness retreat to enable the staff to have timeout to think about/pamper/work on themselves and their research. So often we respond to emails, students, teaching demands, minutae that we forget about the big picture. We began with asking ourselves: "What are we most proud of?" in order to revise our bios and CVs.

ACU speech pathology team

ACU Speed Session for May

I have presented May's Speed Session for Australian Catholic University. Here is what they have advertised about the session: 

Speed Session 1.: Presented by Professor Sharynne McLeod 

Speed Session Title: Multilingual children's speech 

Recording: https://echo360.net.au/media/1b5f5ec3-0e07-4378-abb2-7fc0489e0ba2/public 

Presentation handout: available

Sharynne McLeod is a speech-language pathologist and professor of speech and language acquisition at Charles Sturt University, Australia and adjunct professor at Australian Catholic University. She has received Honors of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, is a Life Member of Speech Pathology Australia, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales. She has been an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, Vice President of the International Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics Association, and Elected Board Member of the International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders (IALP). She has co-authored 11 books and over 230 peer reviewed journal articles and chapters focusing on children’s speech acquisition, speech sound disorders, and multilingualism. She was named Australia’s Research Field Leader in Audiology, Speech and Language Pathology (2018, 2019, 2020) and Best in the World based on the “quality, volume and impact” of research in the field (2019) by The Australian Newspaper. She has won Editors’ Awards from Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing: Speech (2018), American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology (2019), and Topics in Language Disorders (2020).

https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2022/04/australian-catholic-university-speed.html

Longstanding research collaborations

A/Prof Jane McCormack and I have worked together for many many years. We have just picked up some research that we laid aside for a time - and had a wonderful meeting today getting back on track with submitting it so that the world can see it. What a pleasure it is to have lonstanding friends and colleagues who share a passion for making a difference in children's lives.

Associate Professor Jane McCormack, Australian Catholic University