LSHSS special issue on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

The first article has been published that will form a part of our special issue "Children's Communication and United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child". Congratulations to the team from Belgium.

Alighieri, C., Bettens, K., & Lierde, K. V. (2026, in press). Speaking up: Communication rights and the lived experiences of children with cleft palate. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. https://doi.org/10.1044/2025_LSHSS-25-00131 
 

Abstract
Purpose:
A cleft palate is a congenital condition characterized by an opening in the roof of the mouth that can affect speech, feeding, hearing, dentition, aesthetics, and social integration. This qualitative study explored the lived experiences of six children with cleft palate in relation to their communication rights as articulated in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), specifically CRC Article 12 (respect for children's views), Article 13 (sharing thoughts freely), and Article 23 (children with disabilities).
Method:
Through semistructured interviews and participatory methods, six children with a cleft palate (aged 6–13 years) shared their perspectives on how speech-language therapy influences their ability to express themselves, engage socially, and participate in educational and family life. A hybrid thematic analysis approach was adopted, combining both inductive and deductive strategies.
Results:
The analyses of the data derived directly from the children revealed three overarching themes in relation to CRC Article 12 (respect for children's views), Article 13 (sharing thoughts freely), and Article 23 (children with disabilities): Theme 1: Voice, Agency, and Participation in Decisions; Theme 2: Freedom of Expression and Emotional Safety; and Theme 3: Awareness of Difference and Need for Support. These themes reflect a nuanced interplay between children's personal experiences and the realization of their communication rights in therapeutic contexts. Findings reveal both empowering aspects of intervention, enhancing confidence and social inclusion, and barriers including limited access to tailored services and communication challenges that hinder full expression.
Conclusions:
The study underscores the critical role of speech interventions in upholding children's communication rights and advocates for inclusive, child-centered approaches that prioritize children's voices and diverse communication needs. Implications for clinicians, educators, and policymakers highlight the need to address systemic inequities and foster environments where children with cleft palate can fully exercise their rights to be heard and freely express themselves.

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 

LSHSS Clinical Forum: Children’s communication and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)

Dr Helen L. Blake, A/Prof Kathy Cologon and I are working on the LSHSS Clinical Forum: Children’s communication and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). We are delighted by the large number of submissions from across the world - and are now inviting reviewers.

 

LSHSS editors' meeting for clinical forum

Today Kathy Cologon, Helen Blake and I met for our first face-to-face meeting to discuss our clinical forum for Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools titled "Children’s communication and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)".

Here is the call for papers:  https://academy.pubs.asha.org/call-for-papers/childrens-communication-and-the-united-nations-convention-on-the-rights-of-the-child-crc/ 

This collection for Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools (LSHSS) encourages research submissions that offer insights into children’s communication aligned with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC, United Nations, 1989), the United Nations’ most widely ratified human rights treaty.

The CRC is important for everyone, including children with speech, language, communication and swallowing needs, their families, communities, and those who work with them (e.g., speech-language pathologists, audiologists, educators, psychologists, health and medical professionals, lawyers). 

This Clinical Forum of LSHSS encourages papers that address at least one Article of the CRC its the relationship to children’s communication, particularly children with diverse communication abilities. Some papers could focus on communication rights that are mentioned in Articles 2, 12, 13, 29, 30 and 40 of the CRC (McLeod, 2018). The aim is for the Clinical Forum to cover most of the Articles in the CRC – so be creative. 

Papers are sought about children with diverse communication abilities from authors across the world in a variety of disciplines, including from people who live and work in Majority World countries (low and middle-income countries and small island states). Papers that include the perspectives of children are encouraged.

Helen, Sharynne, Kathy

Just published - Children Draw Talking Around the World

Hooray!

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, Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2025_LSHSS-23-00190 
 

ACCEPTED for publication - Children draw talking around the world

What wonderful news. Our innovative interdisciplinary Children Draw Talking paper has been accepted for publication today:

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, in press). Children draw talking around the world. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. Manuscript accepted for publication. 

Here is the short summary

200 children from 24 countries drew who they talk to (friends, family, animals, professionals), when and where they talk (outside, at home), what they talk about (toys, animals, friends, family), and how they feel about talking (happy). These insights promote understanding of children’s communication and inform how children’s insights can be included in assessment and intervention.

Here is the abstract

Purpose. The purpose of this study is to determine how children from across the world draw themselves talking and to apply an interdisciplinary analysis to understand children’s perspectives to improve delivery of services at school.
Method. Participants were 200 children from 24 countries who submitted a drawing of themselves talking to someone using the Early Childhood Voices Drawing Protocol. Drawings were uploaded to Charles Sturt University’s Children Draw Talking Global Online Gallery. The participants were 2–12 years (M = 6.13), spoke 23 languages, and 28.5% of caregivers reported concerns about their children’s talking. A 16-member interdisciplinary research team analyzed the drawings using: descriptive, developmental, focal point, meaning making, and systemic functional linguistics transitivity analysis frameworks.
Results. Children could draw themselves talking. The participants’ age and ability to draw a human figure was strongly correlated. Most participants reported they felt happy about talking and drew themselves talking to one or more conversational partner(s), with focal points that included body parts and facial expressions, talking and listening, proximity to others, relationships and connections, and positivity and vibrancy. The cultural-historical meaning making analysis identified ten themes: relationships, places, actions, natural elements, human-made elements, cultural experiences, logical thinking, emotion, imagination, and concepts. The systemic functional linguistics transitivity analysis identified 71 processes, 134 participants, and 48 circumstances indicating richness in the children’s depictions of talking.
Conclusions. Children across the world can use drawing to communicate who they talk to (friends, family, animals, professionals), when and where they talk (outside, at home), what they talk about (toys, animals, friends, family), and how they feel about talking (happy). These insights promote understanding of children’s communication and inform how children’s insights can be included in assessment and intervention.

 
The children’s drawings are available here:  

• Children Draw Talking Global Online Gallery via the Children’s Voices Centre https://www.csu.edu.au/research/childrens-voices-centre/research/childrens-voices
• YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRXcSAl_dA7YoGpVsg-oyKe3et80WnfVl
• Submission to the United Nations: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/issues/youth/hr75/submissions/subm-views-youth-led-cso-early-childhood-interdisciplinary-resear.pdf

200 children from 24 countries drew themselves talking

Children’s, parents’, and experts’ perception of speech and communication

The following article has been accepted for publication in Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools: "Children’s, parents’, and experts’ perception of speech and communication". It is part of Anniek Van Doornik's PhD research. Congratulations Anniek!

Here is the reference and abstract:

van Doornik, A., Franken, M. C., McLeod, S., Terband, H., & Gerrits, E. (2025). Children’s, parents’, and experts’ perception of speech and communication. Advance online publication. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. 

Purpose: To improve our knowledge of how young children with speech sound disorders (SSD) perceive their own speech and communication in comparison with typically developing children (TD), and how these perceptions relate to parental judgment of communicative participation, intelligibility in different contexts, and an expert measure of children’s speech accuracy (PCCI).
Method: Participants were 111 Dutch-speaking children (48-89 months old): 65 with SSD and 46 who were TD. Children’s self-reports on the Dutch version of the Communication Attitude Test for Preschool and Kindergarten Children Who Stutter (KiddyCAT-NL) were compared (a) between SSD and TD groups and (b) with the parents’ ratings. Parents’ ratings were obtained from two parental questionnaires: Focus on the Outcomes of Communication Under Six-34: Dutch (FOCUS-34NL) measuring communicative participation and the Intelligibility in Context Scale: Dutch (ICS-NL). The KiddyCAT-NL, FOCUS-34NL, and ICS-NL outcomes were also compared with (c) speech accuracy measured by SLPs as the percentage of consonants correct in syllable initial position (PCCI) using the Picture Naming Task of the Computer Articulation Instrument.
Results: Statistical analysis revealed that young children in the SSD group perceived their speech and communication differently than children in the TD group. Only in the SSD group was there a moderate positive correlation between speech accuracy and intelligibility in context and only a weak correlation with the child’s perception of speech and communication. Parents’ and children’s perceptions were weakly correlated.
Conclusion: Information on children’s perception of their own speech is complementary to information obtained from the parents and SLPs’ formal assessment of speech accuracy. To fully understand the impact of SSD it is therefore important to actively elicit and include children’s perspectives on speech and communication.

Accepted journal article - Methods of Diagnosing Speech Sound Disorders in Multilingual Children

Our manuscript titled "Methods of Diagnosing Speech Sound Disorders in Multilingual Children" has just been accepted for publication in the "Changemaker" Special Forum for the Q1 journal Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. It came about because our session at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association convention in 2024 was one of the few that was awarded "changemaker" status - so we were invited to write up our submission. Thanks to Karla and Kate for leading this important paper. Here is the reference and abstract:

Washington, K. N., Crowe, K., McLeod, S., Margetson, K., Bazzocchi, N. B. M., Kokotek, L. E., van der Straten Waillet, P., Másdóttir, T., & Volhardt M. D. S., (2025, in press). Methods of diagnosing speech sound disorders in multilingual children. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools.

Purpose: Identification of speech sound disorder (SSD) in children who are multilingual is challenging for many speech-language pathologists (SLPs). This may be due to a lack of clinical resources to accurately identify SSD in multilingual children as easily as for monolingual children. The purpose of this paper is to describe features of multilingual speech acquisition, identify evidence-based resources for the differential diagnosis of SSD in speakers of under-studied language paradigms, and to demonstrate how culturally responsive practices can be achieved in different linguistic contexts.
Method: Examples of different approaches used to inform accurate diagnosis of SSD in 2- to 8-year-old multilingual children are described. The approaches used included: (a) considering adult speech models, (b) completing validation studies, and (c) streamlining evidence-informed techniques. These methods were applied across four different language paradigms in countries within the Global North and Global South (e.g., Jamaican Creole-English, Jamaica; Vietnamese-English, Australia; French and additional languages, Belgium; Icelandic-Polish, Iceland). The culturally responsive nature of approaches in each cultural/linguistic setting is highlighted as well as the broader applicability of these approaches.
Results: Findings related to dialect specific features, successful validation of tools to describe functional speech intelligibility and production accuracy, and the utility of different techniques applied in the diagnosis of SSD are outlined.
Conclusions: Culturally responsive methods offer a useful framework for guiding SLPs’ diagnostic practices. However, successful application of these practices is best operationalized at a local level in response to the linguistic, cultural, and geographic context.

The Informed SLP reviews our paper on assessments for toddlers with cleft lip and palate

The Informed SLP has just published a review that includes our LSHSS paper on assessments for toddlers with cleft lip and palate. Their review is titled Under pressure: Looking beyond oral pressure consonants in children with cleft palate https://www.theinformedslpmembers.com/peds-under-review/under-pressure-looking-beyond-oral-pressure-consonants-in-children-with-cleft-palate

Our paper that they reviewed is here:

Cronin, A., Mcleod, S., & Verdon, S. (2020). Holistic Communication Assessment for Young Children With Cleft Palate Using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health:Children and Youth. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_lshss-19-00122

Holistic communication assessment for young children with cleft palate using the ICF-CY

The following manuscript has been accepted for publication.
Cronin, A., McLeod, S., & Verdon, S. (2020, in press May). Holistic communication assessment for young children with cleft palate using the ICF-CY. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools.

It forms part of Anna's PhD thesis. Congratulations Anna!
Here is the abstract:

Purpose: Children with a cleft palate (+/- cleft lip; CP±L) can have difficulties communicating and participating in daily life, yet speech-language pathologists typically focus on speech production during routine assessments. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health: Children and Youth (ICF-CY, World Health Organization, 2007), provides a framework for holistic assessment. This paper describes holistic assessment of children with CP±L illustrated by data collected from a non-clinical sample of seven 2-to 3-year-old children, 13 parents, and 12 significant others (e.g., educators and grandparents).
Method: Data were collected during visits to participants’ homes and early childhood education and care centers. Assessment tools applicable to domains of the ICF-CY were used to collect and analyze data. Child participants’ Body Functions including speech, language, and cognitive development were assessed using screening and standardized assessments. Participants’ Body Structures were assessed via oral motor examination, case history questionnaires, and observation. Participants’ Activities and Participation, and Environmental and Personal Factors, were examined through case history questionnaires, interviews with significant others, parent-report measures and observations.
Results: Valuable insights can be gained from undertaking holistic speech-language pathology assessments of children with CP±L. Using multiple tools allowed for triangulation of data and privileging different viewpoints, to better understand the children and their contexts. Several children demonstrated speech error patterns outside of what is considered cleft speech characteristics which underscores the importance of broader assessment.  
Conclusion: SLPs can consider incorporating evaluation of all components and contextual factors of the ICF-CY when assessing and working with young children with CP±L to inform intervention and management practices.

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)

Tutorial: Assessment and analysis of polysyllables in young children

The following manuscript has just been accepted for publication. This is the last paper to be published from Sarah Masso's PhD. Congratulations Sarah!

Masso, S., McLeod, S. & Baker, E. (2017, in press). Tutorial: Assessment and analysis of polysyllables in young children. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools.
Here is the abstract:

Purpose: Polysyllables, words of three or more syllables, represent almost 30% of words used in American English. The purpose of this tutorial is to support speech-language pathologists’ assessment and analysis of polysyllables extending the focus of published assessment tools that focus on sampling and analysing children’s segmental accuracy and/or the presence of phonological patterns.
Method: This tutorial will guide SLPs through a review of 53 research papers that have explored the use of polysyllables in assessment, including the sampling and analysis procedures used in different research studies. The tutorial will also introduce two new tools to analyse and interpret polysyllable speech samples: the Word-level Analysis of Polysyllables (WAP, Masso, 2016a) and the Framework of Polysyllable Maturity (Framework, Masso, 2016b).
Results: Connected speech and single-word sampling tasks were used across the 53 studies to elicit polysyllables and a number of analysis methods were reported including measures of segmental accuracy and measures of structural and suprasegmental accuracy. The WAP and the Framework extend SLPs’ depth of analysis of polysyllables.
Conclusion: SLPs need a range of clinical tools to support the assessment and analysis of polysyllables. A case study comparing different speech analysis methods demonstrates the clinical value in utilizing the WAP and the Framework to interpret children’s polysyllable productions in addition to traditional methods of speech sampling and analysis.