Global knowledge in 131 languages and dialects about children’s speech development, assessment, and intervention

 The following manuscript has been accepted for publication. I am so proud of this work.

McLeod, S. & Blake, H. L. (2026, in press February) Global knowledge in 131 languages and dialects about children’s speech development, assessment, and intervention. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics.

Here is the abstract

This paper exhorts communication specialists to look beyond English language knowledge by providing evidence to disrupt the unsubstantiated belief that there are few assessment and intervention resources for supporting multilingual children’s speech. The Multilingual Children’s Speech website https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/home has curated 1,337 (mostly free) resources for supporting multilingual children’s speech acquisition, assessment, and intervention in 131 of the world’s languages and dialects (86 languages). Specifically, there are 658 speech acquisition studies in 55 languages, 423 speech assessment resources in 77 languages, and 178 speech intervention resources in 21 languages. This free website includes links to assessment tools, intervention manuals, journal articles, books, chapters, theses, and video recordings for 16 of the top 20 most spoken languages in the world and many minority languages, Indigenous languages (e.g., Māori, Samoan, Sesotho, Setswana, Warlpiri, isiXhosa, Zapotec, isiZulu) and languages and dialects impacted by colonization and slavery (e.g., African American English, Fiji English, Jamaican Creole, Tok Pisin). Only 17.95% of the resources are about English, with 51.68% about 39 other Indo-European languages, and 30.37% about 46 languages belonging to 15 non-Indo-European language families. Previous analyses of curated knowledge about children’s development in psychology and linguistics have found a WEIRD bias “Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies”; however, only 29.07% of the languages included on the Multilingual Children’s Speech website are WEIRD. While only 1.23% of the 7000 world languages are represented on the website, these assessment and intervention resources will continue to grow due to ongoing work of multilingual communication specialists across the globe. 

Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics - Three special issues focussing on multilingual children with speech sound disorders

Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics has just published three special issues focussing on multilingual children with speech sound disorders. "Individual profiles in phonological development across languages". Guest editors: Barbara May Bernhardt and Joseph Stemberger

• Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, Volume 36, Issue 7 https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/iclp20/36/7 
• Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, Volume 36, Issue 8 https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/iclp20/36/8 
• Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, Volume 36, Issue 9 https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/iclp20/36/9 

Here is the introduction:

Stemberger, J. P., & Bernhardt, B. M. (2022). Individual profiles in protracted phonological development across languages: Introduction to the special issue. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 36(7), 597-616. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699206.2022.2057871

 

Languages covered: Akan, Farsi, Greek, Japanese, Kuwaiti Arabic, Mandarin, French, Portuguese, Granada Spanish, Bulgarian, Polish, Slovenian, English, German

 

Peer review

I appreciate the peer review process as it enriches our research and the quality of the presentation/publication of our research. As a result, I try to agree to peer review requests if I have time. If I don't have time, I try to recommend someone else who may be suitable.
So far, in 2020 I have undertaken (or am in the process of finalising) a number of reviews, including for:
GRANTS 
• Australian Research Council (Future Fellowship, Discovery, DECRA)
• Speech Pathology Australia
• Charles Sturt University - Faculty of Arts and Education
JOURNAL ARTICLES 
• Folia Phoniatrica et Logopedia
• Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics
• International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology
• Language and Speech
• International Journal of Early Childhood
• Speech, Language, Hearing
CLASSIFICATIONS 
• World Health Organization (ICF2020)

Intelligibility Enhancement Assessment and Intervention: A single-case experimental design with two multilingual university students

The following manuscript has been accepted for publication:
Blake, H. L., McLeod, S. & Verdon, S. (2019, in press April). Intelligibility Enhancement Assessment and Intervention: A single-case experimental design with two multilingual university students. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics. doi:10.1080/2050571X.2019.1585681

This manuscript is part of Helen Blake's PhD.
Here is the abstract:

Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) may be approached by multilingual speakers wishing to improve their intelligibility in English. Intelligibility is an essential element of spoken language proficiency and is particularly important for multilingual international students given their need to express complex ideas in an additional language. Intelligibility Enhancement aims to improve the intelligibility and acceptability of consonants, vowels, and prosody with multilingual speakers who are learning to speak English. This study aimed to describe the Intelligibility Enhancement Assessment and Intervention Protocols and determine whether the intervention changes multilingual university students’ English intelligibility. A multiple-baseline single-case experimental design was applied with direct inter-subject replication across two female participants whose home languages were Vietnamese and Putonghua (Mandarin). English intelligibility was assessed at multiple intervals pre, post, and during intervention. The intervention protocol consisted of 11 weekly 1-hour sessions with an SLP targeting English consonants, vowels, and prosody. Following intervention, both participants displayed increased performance across most measures. For example, the Vietnamese participant’s percentage of consonants correct (PCC) increased from 62.5% to 85.0% in probe keywords. Effect sizes, when comparing baseline and withdrawal phases, were 5.5 for PCC, 4.6 for final consonants, 2.3 for consonant clusters, and 1.6 for syllables indicating improvements in all variables measured. Her speech rate reduced, word stress increased in accuracy, and she perceived less difficulty communicating in English. These promising results suggest further testing of Intelligibility Enhancement Protocols is warranted to determine its effectiveness as an intervention for multilingual speakers.

Measuring intelligibility in signed languages

The following manuscript has just been accepted for publication: Crowe, K., Marschark, M., & McLeod, S. (2019, in press March). Measuring intelligibility in signed languages. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics.
Here is the abstract:

Intelligibility of spoken languages is a widely discussed construct; however, intelligibility as it pertains to signed languages has rarely been considered. This study provides an initial investigation of the construct of intelligibility in American Sign Language (ASL) and evaluates potential measures for self-report and expert ratings of sign intelligibility that examined frequency of understanding, amount of understanding, and ease of understanding. Participants were 66 college students (42 Deaf, 24 hearing) who had self-rated ASL skills ranging from poor to excellent. Participants rated their own intelligibility in ASL and then provided a signed language sample through a picture description task. Language samples were reviewed by an expert rater and measures of intelligibility were completed. Results indicated that expert ratings of sign intelligibility across all measures were significantly and positively correlated. Understanding of the signer was predicted by amount of understanding, frequency of understanding, and ASL production skills, while understanding the picture being described was predicted by ease of understanding and ASL grammar skills. Self- and expert ratings of sign intelligibility using the ASL version of the Intelligibility in Context Scale were not significantly different. Self-report of sign intelligibility for viewers of different familiarity using the ICS-ASL was found not to be feasible due many participants not being in contact with ASL users in the relationships defined by the measure. In conclusion, this preliminary investigation suggests that sign intelligibility is a construct worthy of further investigation.

The research was supported by the Grant Development Funding Scheme from the Faculty of Arts and Education, Charles Sturt University and Kate was supported by an Australian-American Postdoctoral Fulbright Scholarship.

Editorial board member

I have  been invited to be editorial board member for Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools and look forward to this opportunity. This now means that I am an editorial board member of the following journals:

• Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics (since 2006)
• Child Language Teaching and Therapy (since 2007)
• Speech, Language and Hearing (since 2015)
• Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools (from 2018)