CVC collaborative research just published - Advancing the Sustainable Development Goals by listening to children’s voices across the globe

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. (2025). Advancing the Sustainable Development Goals by listening to children’s voices across the globe. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/02656590251406102

Advancing the Sustainable Development Goals by listening to children’s voices across the globe

Our Children's Voices Centre has collaborated to write another paper based on the informative Children Draw Talking data set - and it has just been accepted for publication. Hooray!

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. (2025, in press November). Advancing the Sustainable Development Goals by listening to children’s voices across the globe. Child Language Teaching and Therapy. https://doi.org/10.1177/02656590251406102 

Here is the abstract:

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (United Nations, 2015) represent a global agenda for achieving a sustainable future for people and the planet to inform decision and policy making at all levels. Children should have a significant voice in shaping the world they will inherit; indeed, SDG 17 is focussed on partnership for the goals. The aim of the present study was to investigate which SDGs are depicted in children’s drawings of themselves talking to provide researchers and policy makers insights into their perceptions about, and solutions for, the SDGs. The Children Draw Talking Global Online Gallery (https://www.csu.edu.au/research/childrens-voices-centre/research/childrens-voices) included 200 drawings from children from 24 countries. Children aged 2–12 years responded to the online prompt “draw yourself talking” and submitted their drawing and explanation. A 15-member interdisciplinary research team analysed the drawings to determine their alignment with the seventeen SDGs. Most of the 200 drawings (n = 191, 95.5%) could be coded with at least one SDG. Overall, there were 359 representations of SDGs coded across the data set of 200 drawings. Many children highlighted access to green public spaces and housing (SDG11), education (SDG 4), and decision-making (SDG 16) while others portrayed reducing inequality (SDG 10) and addressing poverty (SDG 1). This research demonstrated that children may be implicitly aware of factors related to the Sustainable Development Goals across their lives and provides an exemplar of how children’s voices could be included by inviting them to contribute drawings.  

Three papers published in the latest issue of LSHSS!

A colleague at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention alerted me to the fact that our team has had THREE papers published in the latest issue of ASHA's Q1 journal - Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. Congratulations CVC team!

McLeod, S., Gregoric, C., Davies, J., Dealtry, L., Delli-Pizzi, L., Downey, B., Elwick, S., Hopf, S. C., Ivory, N., McAlister, H., Murray, E., Rahman, A., Sikder, S., Tran, V. H., & Zischke, C. (2025). Children Draw Talking Around the World. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 56(4), 1088-1109. https://doi.org/10.1044/2025_LSHSS-23-00190 

Margetson, K., McLeod, S., & Verdon, S. (2025). Cross-Linguistic Transfer in Vietnamese–English Speech. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 56(4), 1192-1216. https://doi.org/10.1044/2025_LSHSS-25-00046 

Doornik, A. v., Franken, M.-C., McLeod, S., Terband, H., & Gerrits, E. (2025). Children's, Parents', and Experts' Perception of Speech and Communication. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 56(4), 1042-1053. https://doi.org/10.1044/2025_LSHSS-24-00140