New Grant - Brazil-UK Network on Speech Sound Disorders

We have received the welcome news that we have been successful on the following grant to continue our international collaborations: Fiszbein Wertzner, H., Wren, Y., (McLeod, S.) (2025-2026). Brazil-UK Network on Speech Sound Disorders. Academy of Medical Sciences Networking Grant Scheme (NGR2\1942 )(TOTAL£23,500.00) (CSU £4,367.00) This grant will enable continued collaboration with my colleagues - following on from our trip to Brazil in 2024. Professor Haydee Fiszbein Wertzner - Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil Professor Yvonne Wren - Cardiff Metropolitan University, Wales, UK

Colourful Brazil

After the FORL congress, Prof Yvonne Wren and I visited Iguazu Falls (Foz do Iguaçu) in Brazil and Argentina. Wow! What an amazing weekend. The birds, butterflies, waterfalls and rainbows were extraordinarily colourful and brought us lots of joy.

Coatis are anteaters - and very common at Foz do Iguaçu

The birds were in the Parque das Aves (Birds Park in Foz do Iguaçu), and the numerous colourful butterflies and coati were at the Falls.

Here are all of my blogposts from Brazil

• https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2024/09/colourful-brazil.html
• https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2024/09/keynote-presentations-at-23rd-congress.html
• https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2024/09/brazilian-portuguese-speech-assessments.html
• https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2024/09/visiting-university-of-sao-paulo-usp.html
• https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2024/09/exploring-sao-paulo-with-prof-yvonne.html
• https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2024/09/rio-de-janeiro-colourful-city.html

Brazilian Portuguese speech assessments and resources

While in Brazil I was able to purchase two of Brazilian Portuguese speech assessments and discuss their development and use with the authors:

• ABFW: Teste de Linguagem Infantilm - Prof Haydee Fiszbein Wertzner is the author of the speech subtest - and the "W" in the title acknowledges her contribution. It is important to purchase the complete test because the book and the box of cards are sold separately as well
  
• Complete test - https://www.booktoy.com.br/index.php?route=product/product&path=57&product_id=749
• Manual - https://profono.com.br/produto/abfw-teste-de-linguagem-infantil/
• Stimulus cards - https://profono.com.br/produto/fichario-abfw/
  
• TESF: Teste de Estimulabilidade dos Sons da Fala - https://www.editorabooktoy.com.br/tesf-teste-de-estimulabilidade-dos-sons-da-fala-12276 - Luciana de Oliveira Pagan-Neves, Danira Tavares Francisco, and Haydée Fiszbein Wertzner (other authors are Márcia Mathias de Castro and Tatiane Faria Barrozo). This assessment considers stimulability - and references Glaspey and Stoel-Gammon's work.
  

Authors of TESF Luciana de Oliveira Pagan-Neves, Danira Tavares Francisco, and Haydée Fiszbein Wertzner

Speech assessment component of the ABFW: Teste de Linguagem Infantilm

 Some of the other resources available at the FORL conference from BookToy https://www.booktoy.com.br/

Visiting University of São Paulo (USP)

Yesterday Prof Yvonne Wren and I had a tour around two of the campuses of the University of São Paulo (USP) with Dr Marília Pereira. USP is a large and impressive university - with 97,325 students (2022). We had a tour of the medical museum displaying historic wax models that were used to teach students how to identify different skin diseases. We also visited the Fonoaudiologica [speech-language pathology] Department. The students undertake a 5 year bachelor's degree and are dual qualified in speech pathology and audiology at the end of their degree. We spent time visiting Prof. Haydee's office - and looking at the assessments she had developed (including ABFW) and the ultrasound equipment (including the helmet that I was involved in trialing at Queen Margaret University in the UK in 2006).

Dr Marília Pereira (USP, Brazil), Prof Sharynne McLeod and Prof Yvonne Wren (UK)

Photographs of students who have graduated from USP

Visiting the Historical Museum of the Faculty of Medicine

Fonoaudiologica Department

Ultrasound  helmet that I was involved in trialing at Queen Margaret University in the UK in 2006

Congratulations Dr Kate Margetson on your graduation

 Dr Kate Margetson graduated with her PhD today. I am a very proud supervisor of all of her accomplishments. She graduated in Sydney with Dr Van Tran and her family cheering her on. I was in Brazil about to present two keynote lectures before lunchtime - so Yvonne Wren and I contacted Kate while we ate breakfast! Congratulations Kate on your important PhD and how it is changing the world. I am honoured to present work from Kate's PhD in one of my keynote lectures in Brazil (see photos below).

Dr Kate Margetson

Dr Van Tran congratulating Dr Kate Margetson
- our two VietSpeech PhD graduates

Congratulations Kate!
from Yvonne Wren and myeself in Brazil

Presenting work from Kate's PhD in Brazil

Keynote presentations at the 23rd Congress of the Otolaryngology Foundation in Brazil

I was an invited keynote speaker at the 23rd Congress of the Otolaryngology Foundation FORL https://www.congressoforl.org/. The Congress was held in São Paulo – SP Brazil, at the Frei Caneca Convention Center from 12-14 September (12 a 14 de setembro de 2024).

Here are the titles of my presentations: 

• Communication rights and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals 
• Multilingual children’s speech development, assessment and interventions 
• Children’s communication, educational, social and participation outcomes: Insights from longitudinal population studies (co-authored with Prof Yvonne Wren)

The conference website indicated "There will be more than 700 speakers from 9 specialties! In addition, we will have 10 outstanding international speakers". 

It was a wonderful interdisciplinary conference - enabling rich and informative presentations and conversations between audiologists, ear nose and throat surgeons, speech-language pathologists, and other disciplines from across Brazil and the world.

I also was impressed by my conversations with the students and staff from the University of Sao Paulo. I have quoted and used much of their research in the past - and look forward to learning more from them in the future.

Prof Sharynne McLeod (Australia), Prof Haydee Fiszbein Wertzner (Brazil), Prof Yvonne Wren (UK),

Presenting one of my three keynote addresses

Dr Marilia Pereira (Brazil), Prof Sharynne McLeod (Australia),
Prof Yvonne Wren (UK), Prof Haydee Fiszbein Wertzner (Brazil)

University of Sao Paulo's fonoaudiologia university staff and students at the FORL congress

 

 

Discussing communication as a human right with Dr Yakubu Karagama,
keynote speaker and ENT surgeon and laryngologist from Kings College University London

Presenting with Marcia Keske-Soares, Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (Marcia co-authored a chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World)

Here is the biographical information about me that was written in Portuguese by Dr Luciana Pagan Neves

Sharynne McLeod, Ph.D. é professor ilustre da Charles Sturt University, Austrália, especializada em fala infantil e aquisição da linguagem. Ela possui um legado de defesa dos direitos de comunicação e de liderança de equipes interdisciplinares para realizar pesquisas internacionais impactantes sobre a fala de crianças multilíngues. Ela é membro da Academia de Ciências Sociais da Austrália e atuou como editora-chefe do International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Ela recebeu honras da American Speech-Language-Hearing Association e é membro vitalício da Speech Pathology Australia. Ela é presidente da Associação Internacional de Fonética Clínica e Linguística. O jornal australiano frequentemente a lista como Líder de Campo de Pesquisa da Austrália e Melhor do Mundo em Fonoaudiologia com base na “qualidade, volume e impacto” de suas pesquisas.

Luciana Bauru

Gifts received by Yvonne and myself from the conference organisers!

Exploring Sao Paulo with Prof Yvonne Wren

Prof Yvonne Wren and I have enjoyed exploring São Paulo - a city of 12 million people. We have also enjoyed the opportunity of  working together on our keynote presentations and other work to support children with speech sound disorders around the world.

Sharynne and Yvonne finalising our keynote presentations

Sharynne and Yvonne with St Paul outside the
Catedral Metropolitana de São Paulo

Artwork by Beatriz Milhazes in the Picture Gallery in Transformation exhibition

Artwork at the Museu de arte de São Paulo (MASP) are displayed on crystal plinths
- so that comparisons can be made between the art

Rio de Janeiro - A colourful and friendly city

This is my first trip to South America. I have loved visiting Rio de Janeiro while get over jetlag. It is such a colourful and friendly city celebrating people of all ages and cultures. 

Barbie Marathon on Copacabana Beach

Walking along Ipanema with Tom Jobim composer of "The Girl from Ipanema" :)

Multilingual Brazil - Portuguese, Spanish, English

An Australian Aboriginal churinga in the Museum of Tomorrow - "to be a bridge between what came before and what is yet to come. A concrete link between our visitors and our ethical pillars of Sustainability and Conviviality. It represents the dream of shared by all of us to build the tomorrows that we desire together"

I now travel to Sao Paulo for the FORL conference (https://www.congressoforl.org/) where I am a keynote speaker. I was invited to visit Brazil as a keynote speaker in 2011, 2020, and 2022, but each time health and family issues have prevented me visiting. Finally, I have made it. I am so pleased to be here.