Manuscript revisions after peer review

Journal articles undergo rounds of peer review before publication (or rejection). Prof Linda Harrison and I spent time revising an important manuscript this weekend while Linda was visiting Bathurst. We appreciate the time and thoughtfulness of the editor and reviewers. The message in our article is important for understanding outcomes of children with speech, language and communication need.

Early childhood research conversations

Today I had lunch with Dr Tamara Cumming, who is currently at Macquarie University. Tamara and I worked together to establish the Early Childhood Research Group a number of years ago. It was great to reconnect and dream about future collaborations.

Keynote speaker at the International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB)

I was honoured to be invited to be a keynote speaker at the International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB) 26-30 June 2023, hosted by Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia (https://www.isb14.com/home). Over 550 people attended in person and online.

My presentation was titled "Cross-linguistic perspectives on children’s speech development" and is available here: https://youtu.be/mbMRPo73ERE

An artist in the audience painted me during my keynote!

International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB) is a biennial conference on a wide range of issues concerning bi/multilingualism. Since its inaugural conference in 1997 at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, ISB has become the most significant conference in the field of bi/multilingualism. ISB has a strong focus on showcasing multidisciplinary research with a representation from a range of disciplines at every conference, including education, linguistics, neuroscience, psychology and sociology. The aim of ISB is to bring together bi/multilingualism researchers from all around the globe to advance the theoretical and applied research in bi/multilingualism, and to support bi/multilingualism practices in the community.

The conference theme of ISB14 is Diversity Now. The United Nations General Assembly has declared the period between 2022 and 2032 as the International Decade of Indigenous Languages to draw attention to the critical status of many Indigenous languages across the world and encourage action for their preservation, revitalisation, and promotion. As we move into this decade, ISB14 encourages work especially involving lesser studied bilingual communities and interdisciplinary work to tackle bilingualism across the life-span, cultures and societies. 

ISB14 Psycholinguistics Cognitive Effects of Bilingualism Neuroscience Interpreting & Translation Speech-Language Pathology Infant and Child Development Sociolinguistics Indigenous Languages Sociology Health Communication Education Phonetics and Phonology  

Dr Nan Xu Rattanasone - conference chair with Sharynne and Holly

Parent perspectives of the relationships between ear health and children’s speech and language

The following manuscript has been accepted for publication 

Morrow, A., Orr, N., Nash, K., Clague, L., Coates, H., Cross, C., Evans, J. R., Gunasekera, H., Harkus, S., Harrison, L. J., McLeod, S., McMahon, C., Neal, K., Salins, A. & Macniven, R. (2023, in press January). Parent perspectives of the relationships between ear health and children’s speech and language in the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children. Children, 10(1), 165. https://doi.org/10.3390/children10010165 

Here is the abstract: 

Health and wellbeing are holistic concepts that are perceived to be inseparable for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We examined relationships between parent-reported ear symptoms for 787 Indigenous children at two time points (age 2-3 years, age 4-5 years) and two parent-reported speech and language outcomes one year later (age 5-6 years). Most parents (80.2%) reported no concern about their child’s expressive language and (93.8%) receptive language. Binary logistic regression models examined ear health as a predictor of children’s expressive and receptive speech and language adjusting for sociodemographic and health covariates. For children without parent-reported ear symptoms there were lower odds of parental concern about expressive speech and language (aOR=0.45; 95% CI 0.21-0.99) and receptive language (aOR=0.24; 95% CI 0.09-0.62). Parents were less likely to have concerns about the child’s expressive speech and language if their child was female; lived in urban or regional areas; had excellent or very good global health; or had no disability when aged 2-5 years. Since parent-reported ear health and speech and language concerns were related, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children could benefit from culturally safe, strength-based, family-centred, integrated speech, language and ear health services.

This research was as the result of collaboration with Masters students and researchers at the HEARing Co-operative Research Centre including Prof Cath McMahon's team focusing on Indigenous people's ear health.

Macquarie University graduation

Today I attended the Macquarie University graduation ceremony for education graduates. This week saw the first gradations at Macquarie University since the COVID pandemic began in 2020. I was so proud to see my daughter graduate, and also to see many of my early childhood education colleagues at the ceremony.

Conversations about Footprints in Time: The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children

Prof Linda Harrison and I have now met with the H:EAR Director, Professor Catherine McMahon at Macquarie University a few times. We have been discussing analysis of the valuable data from Footprints in Time: The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC). 

Prof Catherine McMahon, Sharynne and Prof Linda Harrison

Here are details about the H:EAR research: https://www.mq.edu.au/research/research-centres-groups-and-facilities/healthy-people/centres/hear/news-and-events/news/news-items/new-funding-for-indigenous-hearing-health

LSIC ear health working group - Macquarie University

Rona Macniven invited Professor Linda Harrison and I to speak at the LSIC ear health working group at Macquarie University yesterday. We also heard presentations from the three Masters of Audiology students on their projects: Fina - determinants and health service access; Emma - education outcomes; Anita - speech and language 

Here are details about the team: https://www.mq.edu.au/research/research-centres-groups-and-facilities/healthy-people/centres/hear/news-and-events/news/news-items/new-funding-for-indigenous-hearing-health

Sharing ideas with Prof Sheila Degotadi

I had a lovely time catching up with Prof Sheila Degotadi in Bathurst and sharing ideas about grants, journals, and international research across early childhood and speech pathology. Both Sheila and I have current Australian Research Council grants that include assessing young children's speech and language:

• VietSpeech:  
• https://www.csu.edu.au/research/vietspeech/overview
• Language for Learning - MQ TALK!: 
• https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/projects/language-for-learning-developing-learning-oriented-talk-in-long-d
• https://www.mq.edu.au/about/about-the-university/faculties-and-departments/faculty-of-human-sciences/departments-and-centres/department-of-educational-studies/our-research/mq-talk!-study

Working from Macquarie University

Over the next month I have the opportunity to work from Macquarie University in Sydney (part time). It will be wonderful to be close to Prof Linda Harrison and to meet with other colleagues within the Department of Educational Studies and the university. Today we were able to discuss the digitisation of the Intelligibility in Context Scale on the Multilingual Children's Speech website with Anniek van Doornik who is visiting from Utrecht University in The Netherlands.

Anniek van Doornik, Sharynne and Linda Harrision

Welcome back to Australia Anniek

Today I met with Anniek van Doornik who is visiting Australia from The Netherlands. I am currently co-supervising her PhD. She is visiting Australia as part of a grant with colleagues from The University of Sydney titled "Tracking speech and language development of Dutch children migrating to Australia". We spent most of the day together discussing her latest journal article that addresses children's perceptions of their speech and other projects we have together. We also were able to visit Prof Linda Harrison at Macquarie University and discuss the digital version of the Intelligibility in Context Scale, that should be launched in 2019.