European CPLOL conference in Florence, Italy

The European CPLOL conference was held in Florence, Italy on 8-9 May. There were 600 attendees from 4 continents representing more than 32 countries and 25 different languages. The keynote speakers included:

• Dorothy Bishop (United Kingdom) Why do some children find language so hard to learn?

• Virginia Volterra (Italy) From action to language: Recent theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence

• Jois Stansfield (United Kingdom) Education, effective practice and ethics in speech and language therapy

I presented the following paper: McLeod, S. (2015, May). Intelligibility in Context Scale: A screening tool for multilingual children in 60 languages.
I enjoyed talking with colleagues from around the globe (including the Speech Fairy (Barbara May Bernhardt) and my Turkish friends Ilknur Mavis, Pinar Ege, Sharynne, Seyhun Topbas) and walking around this beautiful city.

CPLOL opening session

Sharynne with the Duomo in the Tuscan sunshine

Speech Fairy (May Bernhardt) and Sharynne at CPLOL

Turkish friends: Ilknur Mavis, Pinar Ege, Sharynne, Seyhun Topbas

CPLOL conference dinner at the Palazzo Borghese

Intelligibility in Context Scale at CPLOL in Florence, Italy

Research and translations of the Intelligibility in Context Scale continue to grow. While at the CPLOL conference in Florence, Italy I gave a presentation about the ICS. The presentation following mine was by Annick van Doornik-van der Zee from The Netherlands who has shown that if the ICS score is added to the PCC score it will explain between 61-74% of the variance of scores by preschool-aged children. The session was chaired by Thora Masdottir, the person who translated the ICS into Icelandic, and after the session colleagues from Portugal offered to translate the ICS into European Portuguese. 

Annick van Dorrnik-van der Zee (Netherlands), Thora Masdottir (Iceland),
Marisa Louasda, Ana Margarida Ramalho (Portugal), and Sharynne

Working on Jamaican data in Italy

After the IALP conference in Turino, Karla Washington (from University of Cincinnati) and I headed to Firenze to work on data analysis protocols for data we collected in Jamaica during January. We prepared conference abstracts and began writing two journal articles. It was a productive 3 days.

Sharynne and Karla working on the terrace in Florence

International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics Board Membership

At the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics (IALP) convention in Turin, I was elected as a member of the IALP Board for the next three years. I have just concluded two terms (six years) as a member of the IALP Education in Speech and Language Pathology Committee.

At the closing ceremony I also learned that the 2013 IALP convention had over 980 attendees from 39 countries. There were 252 papers, 271 posters, 56 seminars, and 13 symposia presented.

Sound Start meeting in Turin, Italy

During the IALP conference, the Sound Start team met to finalise the intervention protocols. Six of the seven team members were present in Turin, and Elise Baker Skyped with us for 2.5 hours from Australia (until 11:30pm her time!). It was an extremely productive meeting, where theoretical and practical issues were discussed. We are looking forward to the final stage of testing the participants (next week), then beginning the intervention phase (in one month's time).

Sound Start in Italy: Sharynne, Kate, Yvonne, (Elise), Sarah, Sue, Jane

Yvonne and Sarah discuss implementation of the Phoneme Factory software

More images from IALP

Mara Belau (IALP past president), Sharynne, Sarah Masso, Yvonne Wren, Kate Crowe,
Helen Grech (IALP president), Lilly Cheng (IALP president elect)

IALP keynote addresses were in English and translated into Italian

IALP excursion to Reggia Di Venaria Reale (Sarah V, Sarah M, Kate, Karla)

Sharynne with Dominique Weston (University of Sydney) at conference dinner

Celebration dinner

CSU VC Research Supervison Award celebration dinner

On 28th August the Charles Sturt University Vice Chancellor presented awards to winners of the VC's award scheme. I was unable to be in Bathurst for the award ceremony, but was able to celebrate the VC's Research Supervision award in Italy at the IALP conference with five of the eight students and ex-students who nominated me: Dr Jane McCormack, Sarah Masso, Dr Karla Washington, Sarah Verdon and Kate Crowe. The students who were unable to join the celebration were Suzanne Hopf, Hannah Wilkin and Nicole Limbrick. It was a lovely occasion - and an honour to be nominated by such a wonderfully talented team.