An interactive technology-based tool for remote speech therapy of childhood speech sound disorders

Prof Kirrie Ballard has invited me to collaborate with her on a study titled "An interactive technology-based tool for remote speech therapy of childhood speech sound disorders" that is partially funded by an AMP Tomorrow Fund Grant. It will involve providing 50 rural children with free access to the Go Bananas! app to support their speech therapy. Here are more details explaining the project: https://www.ampstomorrowfund.com.au/tomorrow-makers/kirrie-ballard.html

We are finalising the protocol/processes now. It is going to be such a great boost to children who don't have access to speech therapy in rural areas, or who are currently on long waiting lists.

Prof Kirrie Ballard and Prof Sharynne McLeod

I am very honoured to work with Prof Ballard and her colleague Dr Beena Ahmed, who are the co-founders of Say66. They have been winning a number of awards recently.

Prof Ballard won the Speech Pathology Australia Innovation Award for 2020: https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2021/02/congratulations-prof-kirrie-ballard.html

Dr Beena Ahmed is a senior lecturer in the School of Engineering and Telecommunications at UNSW. This week she won the 2021 Women in AI Award in the field of Education. https://www.womeninai.co/waiawards2021aus-nz

Women in AI (WAI) is a global network of female experts and professionals in the field of Artificial Intelligence working towards gender-inclusive AI that benefits a global society. Our mission is to close the gender gap in the field by educating the next generation of female leaders in AI and to increase female representation and participation in AI. ​ Committed to supporting and rewarding excellence to women in AI, the WAI Awards 2021 will be prestigious in their recognition and vital in building the credibility and exposure for women in AI in Australia and New Zealand.

 

Supporting children with speech sound disorders during COVID-19 restrictions: Technological solutions

The following manuscript has just been accepted for publication 

McLeod, S., Ballard, K., Ahmed, B., McGill, N. & Brown, M. I. (2020, in press August). Supporting children with speech sound disorders during COVID-19 restrictions: Technological solutions. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups (SIG17: Global issues in Communication Sciences and Related Disorders).

Here is the abstract: 

“Children are the hidden victims of the COVID-19 pandemic” (UNICEF, 2020). Timely and effective speech intervention is important to reduce the impact on children’s school achievement, ability to make friends, mental health, future life opportunities, and government resources. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many Australian children did not receive sufficient speech-language pathology (SLP) services due to long waiting lists in the public health system. COVID-19 restrictions exacerbated this issue, as even children who were at the top of lengthy SLP waiting lists often received limited services, particularly in rural areas. To facilitate children receiving speech intervention remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic evidence from randomized controlled trials regarding three technological solutions are examined: (1) Sound Start Study (Phoneme Factory Sound Sorter), (2) Waiting for Speech Pathology website, and (3) Apraxia World. For the first two technological solutions, there were similar gains in speech production between the intervention and control groups; whereas, for the third solution the average magnitude of treatment effect was comparable to face-to-face SLP therapy. Automated therapy management systems may be able to accelerate speech development and support communication resilience to counteract the effects of the COVID-19 restrictions on children with speech sound disorders. Technology-based strategies may also provide a potential solution to the chronic shortage of SLP services in rural areas into the future.