CVC affilates and adjuncts contribute papers to CLTT special issue

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

It has been great to mentor and include so many CVC staff/affiliates/adjuncts/HDR students in the special issue:

• 6 CVC papers
• 2 CVC editors
• 19 CVC authors
• 8 CVC peer reviewers

1. Cologon, K. (2026). From space and voice to audience and influence: Methodological approaches to inclusive co-research with young children. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 42, https://doi.org/10.1177/02656590261470993
2. Deehan, H., McLeod, S. & Harrison, L. J. (2026). “Oh! I forgot the voice”: Comparing drawings of talking by children with and without speech sound disorder. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 42, https://doi.org/10.1177/02656590261433348
3. Gregoric, C., McLeod, S., Hopf, S. C., Downey, B., Rahman, A., Sikder, S., Zischke, C., Tran, V. H., Murray, E., McAlister, H., Ivory, N., Delli-Pizzi, L., Elwick, S., Dealtry, L., Davies, J. (2026). Advancing the Sustainable Development Goals by listening to children’s voices across the globe. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 42, https://doi.org/10.1177/02656590251406102
4. McAlister, H., McLeod, S., & Hopf, S. C. (2026). Ladders, trees and matrixes: Child-focused participatory action research frameworks for children with diverse communication abilities. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 42, https://doi.org/10.1177/02656590261455298
5. McCormack, J., Cronin, A., McLeod, S., Ireland, M., Wang, C., & Tiong, C. (2026). Children’s drawings of intervention for childhood apraxia of speech: Place, people, activity, and emotion. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 42, https://doi.org/10.1177/02656590251375340
6. McLeod, S. (2026). Large listening ears are not enough: How can we mature in our practices to listen to children? Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 42, https://doi.org/10.1177/02656590261477289

*bolded text = CVC affiliate/adjunct/HDR student

 

A new kitchen for The Treehouse - nearly finished

Our new kitchen is nearly finished. Thank you Emma Hayes for your oversight of this important project in the life of CVC.

CVC Children Draw Playing - How is play good for the world

 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

 

 

World Health Organization meeting with Children's Voices Centre

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.

Sharynne  McLeod, Mél Gréaux, Kate Freire, Carolyn Gregoric, Belinda Downey, Helen L. Blake

Bathurst Regional Council | Cultural & Community Services

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:

• Director Cultural & Community Services | Dan Cove
• Manager Community Services | Megan Bargwanna
• Manager Museums & Gallery | Amanda Crews
• Manager Library Services | Patou Clerc and Victoria (Tori)
• Manager Entertainment Centre | Graham McNab
• Manager Tourism & Visitor Services | Melinda Hadley
• Manager Events | Hannah Welch
• Assistant to DCCS | Alison Armstrong

Sharynne  with Patou Clerc, Manager of Library Services

A new kitchen for The Treehouse - demolition day

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

 

 

Weekly CVC staff meeting

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. 

 

Sharynne  McLeod, Emma Hayes, 
Carolyn Gregoric, Kathy Cologon, 
Amy Whitfield, Tamara Cumming

CVC Bimonthly Community Meeting and Lunch

Today CVC affiliates joined us for our bimonthly whole of centre meeting. The agenda included centre updates, collaborative projects, and opportunities to get involved. We also welcomed Amy Whitfield as our new Digital Media Curator

CVC2026 Publications Committee

The CVC2026 Publications Committee, chaired by A/Prof Tamara Cumming met today - and decided on the book series we aim to target for the publication of key presentations from CVC2026. It was a useful conversation - and we are ready to begin the proposal documentation. We worked out that CVC2026 papers target all Sustainable Development Goals apart from SDGs2, 6, 7.

Emma day

Two Emmas worked with me at the Children's Voices Centre today :)

Emma Hayes: CVC Senior Adminstration Officer 

Emma Scanlon: CeTasSSD Research Assistant

Sharynne, Emma H and Emma S

Emma S working in The Nest

 

CVC2026: 145 abstracts accepted from 35 countries

We have just finalised the following details for the CVC2026 conferece. Thank you Carolyn for your oversight.

I am excited to share that we have accepted 145 submissions to present at CVC2026 from 35 countries: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, Fiji, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Lithuania, Malaysia, Malta, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, New Zealand, Nigeria, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Viet Nam 
The final number may change as 8 authors are still yet to revise their abstract. It is going to be an awesome conference. 
Dr Carolyn Gregoric Research Manager, CVC2026 Conference Secretary 
Children’s Voices Centre

CVC visiting scholar Dr Zinnia Mevawalla: Kangaroos and sunsets

Our visiting scholar Dr Zinnia Mevawalla, joined A/Prof Kathy Cologon and myself to meet the CSU kangaroos and enjoy the sunset over Bathurst. It was a perfect rural Australian moment during her visit.

There were too many kangaroos to count!

We saw the rare albino kangaroo on Mt Panorama!

 

Welcome to our CVC Adjuncts

CVC is honoured to have adjunct researchers and professors join us from across the world. Today we welcomed some of our new adjuncts this morning:

Welcome to Prof Karla Washington (Canada/Jamaica), Dr Jinjin (Helen) Lu (China), Dr Josephine Bampoe (Ghana), Matthew Stapleton, Dr Amanda Niland, Dr Olivia Karaolis

Dr Zinnia Mevawalla, Prof Sharynne  McLeod, A/Prof Kathy Cologon and some of our new CVC adjuncts

 

CVC visiting scholar: Dr Zinnia Mevawalla: Presentation

We are delighted to welcome Dr Zinnia Mevawalla to the Children's Voices Centre as our visiting scholar. Dr Mevawalla is a Senior Lecturer in Early Years Education at the University of Strathclyde  in Glasgow, Scotland, UK. https://www.strath.ac.uk/staff/mevawallazinniadr/

 Here are her presentation details at The Treehouse on Thursday 16 July at 12:00 pm.

Tak tent o sma things - coming together through relational curiosity to change hearts and minds for inclusive education in the early years.

Leadership is essential to actualising the inclusive cause, however access to professional learning opportunities, especially in the Scottish early years workforce have been limited.
The perceived divide between theory and practice related to inclusion has also highlighted discourses such as those echoed in Scottish newspapers - “if inclusion only works in theory, it doesn’t work at all” (McEnaney, 2025). This perceived divide emphasises the importance of grounding any professional learning in a deep understanding of the local intricacies and nuances of “real world” leadership and education practices.
The changing hearts and minds programme (CHAMP) was rooted in the bringing together of leaders from within one local authority, and researches in Scottish and Australian universities. In this paper we report on the “how”, “what” and “so what?” of the CHAMP project, emphasising how we (leaders, parents, practitioners, and researchers) came together, what happened (the key findings and significance) and where we plan to go from here.
This presentation offers a wonderful opportunity to engage with Dr Mevawalla’s work, hear about her current research, and connect with colleagues across the Children’s Voices Centre and wider affiliate network.

People are very welcome to attend either in person at The Treehouse, Building 1451, Bathurst Campus, or online via Zoom: https://charlessturt.zoom.us/j/66761820743
 

 

Children's advisory group at The Treehouse and CSU TV studio

This week members of our CVC Children's Advisory Group came to The Treehouse to create artwork representing their ideal hospital for our advice to the World Health Organization.

Next, they went to the CSU TV studio and recorded their insights about the Disability Discrimination Act and Children Draw Health that will be presented at the CVC2026 conference in September.

It's such a joy to have the children visiting.

 

Welcome Amy Whitfield: CVC Digital Media Creator

Welcome to our newest staff member, Amy Whitfield who is our CVC Digital Media Creator. Amy has a communications degree from Charles Sturt University and has spent time in Building 1451 before it was The Treehouse. Her main role is to support the CVC2026 conference, but she also will support CVC to profile its impactful work. We are so excited to have you join us Amy.

Carolyn Gregoric, Sharynne  McLeod, Amy Whitfield

Children Draw Belonging: Children's insights

It has been a very special week with my young friends who have had such an influence on my research and how I listen to children. In the past, this group of children have initiated and shaped our research projects: Children Draw Talking, Children Draw Playing and  Children Draw Health. Today they participated in the Children Draw Belonging research. This is the first project that they have not initiated (this time another group of children initiated it). They had some good insights. I love learning from these children.

Children Draw Playing data analysis: "How is playing good for the world?"

This morning our team analysed the Children Draw Playing journal about "How is playing good for the world". We had 67 children answer this question.

Dr Jo Grimmond, Prof Sharynne  McLeod, Dr Belinda Downey, Dr Katrina Gersbach, Dr Van H. Tran, Dr Kate Freire

Our overarching themes from the content analysis were:

Playing:

• fun, good and entertains us (n = 23)
• keeps us healthy and energetic (n = 17)
• makes the world happy (n = 16)
• brings people together (n = 9)
• we can try new things (n = 9)
• not good/don’t know (n = 4)

 We discussed the following theories

Classical theories of play

• Surplus energy theory
• Recreation or relaxation theory
• Practice or pre-exercise theory
• Recapitulation theory

 Contemporary or modern theories of play:

• Psychoanalytic theory (Freud and Erikson)
• Arousal-seeking or modulation theory
• Metacommunicative theory
• Cognitive theory (Piaget)
• Sociocultural theory (Vygotsky)

 

CVC Thursday Research Presentation

Today I provided the CVC Thursday Research Presentation. My topic was "Tips and Tricks for Writing Research CVs to Assist with Grant Writing"

Curriculum vitae (CV) is a Latin word meaning the course of one’s life. An academic’s CV is a comprehensive tool that enables a researcher to collect and analyse data about themselves to support their research endeavours. This workshop will encourage researchers to use their CV to document work that is:
Important 

• Changes lives: “Will this make a difference?”
• Generates new knowledge
• Is of national and international significance

The best you can do

• Collaborate when you don’t have the knowledge and methodological expertise

Targeted to specific audiences

• Reviewers, FOR codes, government

McLeod, S. (2014). Undertaking and writing research that is important, targeted, and the best you can do. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 16(2), 95-97. https://doi.org/10.3109/17549507.2014.896106


 

 

Indigenous Cadetship at CVC

We had a fantastic meeting with Addison Stewart to discuss the opportunity for the Children's Voices Centre to host one or two Indigenous Cadetships through CSU. We look forward to progressing this opportunity.