Impact - Our research on speech acquisition incorporated into state guidance within the USA

Our research on children's speech acquisition(Crowe & McLeod, 2020; Ireland et al., 2020; McLeod & Crowe, 2018) has been incorporated in state guidance within the USA: 

• Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Children’s Articulation and Speech Sound Development https://dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/sped/pdf/sl-articulation-infographic.pdf 
• Virginia Department of Education https://www.doe.virginia.gov/programs-services/special-education/specific-disabilities/speech-language-impairment

• 
  

Crowe, K., & McLeod, S. (2020). Children's English consonant acquisition in the United States: A review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 29(4), 2155–2169. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_AJSLP-19-00168 

Ireland, M., McLeod, S., Farquharson, K., & Crowe, K. (2020). Evaluating children in U.S. public schools with speech sound disorders: Considering federal and state laws, guidance, and research. Topics in Language Disorders, 40(4), 326–340. https://doi.org/10.1097/tld.0000000000000226 

McLeod, S., & Crowe, K. (2018). Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 27(4), 1546–1571. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100

West Contra Costa Unified School District K-12 Speech Department webinar

This morning (7-9am) I presented a 2-hour webinar to staff from the West Contra Costa Unified School District K-12 Speech Department titled “Children’s Speech Development”. It was wonderful to speak with such an engaged and informed audience. I am very grateful to Romelda "Dang" Famorcan, MS, CCC-SLP, MHPEd who organised the event. The SLP team at West Contra Costa Unified School District have rich language resources - with team members speaking Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Arabic, Tagalog/Filipino, Punjabi, Urdu and a range of other languages.

Romelda "Dang" Famorcan, MS, CCC-SLP, MHPEd and Sharynne McLeod

Dang invited attendees to write one word in the chat to summarize the session. Here is what they wrote (thank you!)

Engaging, Resourceful, thought-provoking, helpful, wow, Surprising!!, Affirming, informative, Fascinating, enlightening!, Informative!!, illuminating, respectful, impactful, Informative, Engaging speaker, relevant, important!!, Thank you so much!!, Amazing!, spectacular, fascinating, informative, very informative and very culturally-sensitive and responsive

Statistical learning or phonological universals? Ambient language statistics guide consonant acquisition in four languages

The following paper has just been published.
Contreras Kallens, P., Elmlinger, S., Wang, K., Goldstein, M., Crowe, K., McLeod, S., & Christiansen, M. (2023). Statistical learning or phonological universals? Ambient language statistics guide consonant acquisition in four languages. In I. M. Goldwater, F. K. Anggoro, B. K. Hayes, & D. C. Ong (Eds.), Proceedings of the 45th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 3290-3296). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3wj6767p

Here is the abstract 

What predicts individual differences in children’s acquisition of consonant production across languages? Considerations of children’s development of early speech production have traditionally emphasized inherent physiological constraints of the vocal apparatus that speakers generally have in common (i.e., articulatory complexity). In contrast, we propose a statistical learning account of phonological development, in which phonological regularities of the ambient language guide children’s learning of those regularities in production. Across four languages (English, Spanish, Japanese, and Korean), we utilized recent meta-analytic dataset of age of consonant acquisition spanning 28 studies. High-density measures of children's ambient language environment from over 8,000 transcripts of speech directed to over 1,000 children were used to assess how well the frequency of consonants in childdirected speech predict the age of consonant acquisition. Our results suggest that both frequency and articulatory complexity are related to age of acquisition, with similar results found for English, Spanish, Japanese, and Korean. Consonants heard frequently by children tended to be incorporated into their production repertoires earlier and consonants heard less frequently are incorporated into production repertoires later in development. We discuss future directions that incorporate a statistical learning pathway towards learning to produce the sound patterns of the ambient language. 

Keywords: speech production; language input; language statistics; child-directed speech; phoneme acquisition; statistical learning

Statistical learning or phonological universals? Ambient language statistics guide consonant acquisition in four languages

 What an exciting email to receive this morning:

"We are very pleased to inform you that your paper submission
"1812 - Statistical learning or phonological universals? Ambient language statistics guide consonant acquisition in four languages" has been accepted for presentation as a poster with full paper publication at CogSci 2023. We received 875 paper submissions this year. We accepted 155 (17.7%) papers for oral presentation and inclusion in the proceedings and 380 (43.4%) papers for poster presentation with full paper publication in the proceedings...The dates of the conference are July 26 – 29, 2023. Detailed conference schedules and guidelines about participation in the conference will be made available through the conference webpage: https://cognitivesciencesociety.org/cogsci-2023/"

This work represents a collaboration between Kate Crowe and myself and researchers from Cornell University (Steven Elmlinger, Pablo Contreras Kallens, Michael Goldstein, Katharine Wang).

Kallens, P. C., Elmlinger, S. L., Wang, K. S., Goldstein, M. H., Crowe, K., McLeod, S., & Christiansen, M. H. (2023). Statistical learning or phonological universals? Ambient language statistics guide consonant acquisition in four languages. CogSci2023, Sydney, Australia.

Here is the abstract:

What predicts individual differences in children’s acquisition of consonant production across languages? Considerations of children’s development of early speech production have traditionally emphasized inherent physiological constraints of the vocal apparatus that speakers generally have in common (i.e., articulatory complexity). In contrast, we propose a statistical learning account of phonological development, in which phonological regularities of the ambient language guide children’s learning of those regularities in production. Across four languages (English, Spanish, Japanese, and Korean), we utilized recent meta-analytic dataset of age of consonant acquisition spanning 28 studies. High-density measures of children's ambient language environment from over 8,000 transcripts of speech directed to over 1,000 children were used to assess how well the frequency of consonants in child-directed speech predict the age of consonant acquisition. Our results suggest that both frequency and articulatory complexity are related to age of acquisition, with similar results found for English, Spanish, Japanese, and Korean. Consonants heard frequently by children tended to be incorporated into their production repertoires earlier and consonants heard less frequently are incorporated into production repertoires later in development. We discuss future directions that incorporate a statistical learning pathway towards learning to produce the sound patterns of the ambient language.

Blogpost about the impact of our research into children's speech development

Dr. Ellen S. Kester, President of Bilinguistics Speech and Language Services (www.bilinguistics.com) in Austin, TX has just written a blogpost about the impact of our research into children's speech development (https://bilinguistics.com/a-summary-of-current-speech-acquisition-data-across-27-languages/) before I present a keynote address at the Bilinguistics Conference in a few weeks' time. Here are a few quotes: 

"The word “landmark” is an Olde English word originally used to describe the expansion of the boundaries of a kingdom. Nowadays, this word is typically reserved to describe changes in legislation which will have a massive impact on our lives. I think it’s fair to use this word to describe two speech acquisition data studies that came out right before the pandemic and that have huge implications for how we do our jobs as SLPs. New speech acquisition data published by Dr. Sharynne McLeod and Dr. Kate Crowe challenges some long-held beliefs about how and when sounds emerge. Results suggests that developmental norms are common across all languages, initial sounds develop as early as age 2, and the majority of sounds are mastered by age 5, including the American /r/." 

"Dr. Sharynne McLeod is so easy to listen to and her humility is pervasive in everything she shares. If you are new to her work, there are some things we don’t want to skip past: Her work spans decades. She received funding and traveled extensively to the countries of many of the languages she studied. She purchased and explored oodles of evaluations tools in multiple languages to understand the normative data on which they are based. Her country is her lab: The people working with and for her are out in the rural communities, towns, and urban centers of Australia. And what is the result? Possibly the greatest data set accumulated on speech acquisition..."

https://bilinguistics.com/slp-conference-presentations/

 

Research Impact: Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has adopted our research. They thanked the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) for allowing them to "adapt portions of their resource guide for Wisconsin". Here is an example where they use our work:

Developmental Scales Developmental scales include information about typical speech and language development; the student’s skills are compared to the expected age of acquisition of skills (see ASHA’s Typical Speech and Language Development-resource for parents). Crowe and McLeod 2020 norms can be used to highlight sounds the student has mastered and has not mastered in consideration of a Speech or Language Impairment. See also Wisconsin Articulation Speech Development Infographic. (p. 8) (also see pp. 4-5)

Recent research (Hustad et al. 2020; McLeod et al. 2015; McLeod 2020) acknowledges that intelligibility varies by context (e.g., familiarity of listeners, word or discourse level, amount of background noise) and therefore intelligibility ratings must be interpreted with caution given the these variables. It is beneficial to obtain more than one sample in more than one context and to consider intelligibility within the context of other assessment activities conducted when considering a Speech or Language Impairment. (pp. 9-10, also see p. 11).

Here are the links that reference our work:

• https://dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/sped/pdf/sl-assessment-speech-sound-prod.pdf
• https://dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/sped/pdf/sl-sound-development-chart.pdf
• https://dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/sped/pdf/sl-articulation-infographic.pdf
  

https://dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/sped/pdf/sl-sound-development-chart.pdf

https://dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/sped/pdf/sl-articulation-infographic.pdf

 

 

Here are the papers that they are citing: 

Crowe, K., & McLeod, S. (2020). Children's English consonant acquisition in the United States: A review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 29(4), 2155–2169. https://doi.org/doi:10.1044/2020_AJSLP-19-00168 

McLeod, S. (2020). Intelligibility in Context Scale: Cross-linguistic use, validity, and reliability. Speech, Language and Hearing, 23(1), 9–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/2050571X.2020.1718837 

McLeod, S., Crowe, K., & Shahaeian, A. (2015). Intelligibility in Context Scale: Normative and validation data for English-speaking preschoolers. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 46(3), 266–276. https://doi.org/10.1044/2015_LSHSS-14-0120

Which speech sound norms are used in US public schools?

I have just had the opportunity to read a preprint copy of the following manuscript that will be published in Seminars in Speech and Language soon: 

Farquharson, K., & Stevenson, K. L. (2021). Which speech sound norms are used in US public schools? A retrospective survey analysis. Seminars in Speech and Language. 

Here is the abstract: 

Speech sound acquisition normative data are widely and heavily used in the United States (US) to determine eligibility for services. Normative studies differ in the age and geographic location of participants, which can limit applicability across the US. In 2016, we queried school-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in the US using a web-based survey, to determine which speech sound norms are used. All 9 regions from the US census were represented. The Iowa-Nebraska norms were most commonly reported. However, many SLPs were unable to name the source of the data that they used. Over 60% of the sample indicated that they referred to one source of normative data. Results of a logistic regression indicated that region of the US predicted if SLPs used one or multiple sources. Specifically, SLPs in the West North Central region of the US (which includes Iowa and Nebraska) were more likely to use only one source of data, the Iowa-Nebraska norms. We recommend that speech sound norms are less heavily relied upon for eligibility decisions, particularly due to the substantial variations in culture and dialect throughout the various regions of the US. 

The opening paragraph shows the impact of our recent review paper about children's speech acquisition:

In 2018, the McLeod and Crowe article on speech sound acquisition “broke the internet”1. Although the article did not include new data, it did include an important reexamination of how speech sounds are acquired. This raised many questions for practicing clinicians regarding the age at which they should consider treating certain sounds. As a part of that broad discussion, it became evident that clinicians may be placing too much clinical weight on speech sound normative data for making eligibility decisions, and that speech sound normative data was being used for diagnostic purposes2. In the past three years, there has been substantial discussion regarding the use of speech sound normative data (henceforth: speech sound norms), particularly in school-based settings...

I look forward to the continued "substantial discussion regarding the use of speech sound normative data" once this paper is published. 

McLeod, S., & Crowe, K. (2018). Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 27(4), 1546–1571. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100 

Crowe, K., & McLeod, S. (2020). Children's English consonant acquisition in the United States: A review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 29(4), 2155–2169. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_AJSLP-19-00168

ASHA's Research Tuesday features Crowe and McLeod (2020)

This week our paper was featured by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) for Research Tuesday:

Crowe, K., & McLeod, S. (2020). Children's English consonant acquisition in the United States: A review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 29(4), 2155-2169. https://doi.org/doi:10.1044/2020_AJSLP-19-00168

Immediately, a Facebook question came up: "Evidence for treating /s,l,r/ at 5 years?"

There has been LOTS of discussion on just this point, beginning with the McLeod and Crowe (2018) article. 

• Here is a summary of all of the discussion based on McLeod and Crowe (2018): https://www.theinformedslp.com/how-to/that-one-time-a-journal-article-on-speech-sound-norms-broke-the-slp-internet 
• And part two based on Crowe and McLeod (2020): https://www.theinformedslpmembers.com/reviews?month=08-2020 
• Here’s another blogpost on the topic: https://www.slptoolkit.com/blog/we-have-been-interpreting-the-articulation-norms-all-wrong/ 
• Here is a paper that puts the discussion into perspective for US schools (open access): Ireland, M., McLeod, S., Farquharson, K., & Crowe, K. (2020). Evaluating children in U.S. public schools with speech sound disorders: Considering federal and state laws, guidance, and research. Topics in Language Disorders. https://doi.org/10.1097/TLD.0000000000000226 

The bottom line – typically developing children produce s, l, r by 5 years and here are the free images everyone can use to promote it: https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-acquisition 

Here is the email we received from ASHA announcing they had selected our article to profile: We've been doing this Research Tuesday initiative since 2015, and we have found it to be a very successful way of getting the word out about our authors' publications and research. I hope that the readership of your important article sees a spike because of next week's highlight! 🙂 Congratulations, and best wishes, ~ Kathleen Halverson, Editorial Projects Editor, Serial Publications and Editorial Services Team Social Media Liaison, Scholarly Journals Program 301-296-8719 khalverson@asha.org Follow us on social media! Twitter for Journals: @ASHAJournals Twitter for Perspectives: @SIGPerspectives Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/ashaweb/asha-journals

Research Tuesday profile of our work by ASHA

We have just been informed that next week our article will has been chosedn to be profiled on the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's (ASHA) Research Tuesday. 

Crowe, K., & McLeod, S. (2020). Children's English consonant acquisition in the United States: A review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 29(4), 2155-2169.  https://doi.org/doi:10.1044/2020_AJSLP-19-00168 

Here is some more information about this paper:

• It follows on from our article (McLeod and Crowe, 2018) that won the AJSLP editor’s award: https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100 
• There are free infographics available for both McLeod and Crowe (2018) and Crowe and McLeod (2020) here: https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-acquisition 
• Crowe and McLeod (2020) has been profiled here: https://www.theinformedslp.com/how-to/the-not-new-speech-norms-part-2-an-american-tale 
• We described how this information can be applied in schools here: https://journals.lww.com/topicsinlanguagedisorders/Fulltext/2020/10000/Evaluating_Children_in_U_S__Public_Schools_With.5.aspx

 

2020 UTS Speech Pathology Online SEER Research Symposium

Today I presented an invited speech at the 2020 UTS Speech Pathology Online SEER Research Symposium. My topic was "Children’s Communication Competence Prior to School Entry: Insights from Three Cross-Linguistic "

Here is the official description of the event:

The Inaugural UTS Speech Pathology Research Symposium features 25 short papers about our current research and practice program in the UTS Discipline of Speech Pathology, Master of Speech Pathology course, and PhD Speech and Language Sciences at the Graduate School of Health at UTS, including talks from our clinical industry partners in private practice. This open, online event is free to attend. It's our way of saying "thankyou" to our community of clinicians and research partners, and helping to disseminate the findings of research and practice to the wider community. The program really does provide something for everyone. Come along for as much or as little of the day as you like, but you will need to register to get the link!

 

Impact - The Informed SLP blogpost about Crowe & McLeod (2020)

 The Informed SLP has written another blogpost about our work

https://www.theinformedslp.com/how-to/the-not-new-speech-norms-part-2-an-american-tale

This time it is titled "The Not-New Speech Norms Part 2: An American Tale". The byline is "Say hello to the: Early 13, Middle 7, and Late 4?!"

Flash forward to the present day. This intrepid team of researchers is back with another review, summarizing all the consonant acquisition data (15 studies of 18,907 children) specific to US English. So for any skeptics who thought the 2018 results were skewed by encompassing data from multiple countries... sadly no. Actually, a few sounds show up earlier than in the first study.
Bid a fond farewell to the Early/Middle/Late 8, and say hello to the new (if less handy to remember):
Early 13: /b, p, n, m, d, h, w, t, k, ɡ, f, ŋ, j/ (Age 2–3)
Middle 7: /v, ʤ, l, ʧ, s, ʃ, z/ (Age 4)
Late 4: /ʒ, ɹ, ð, θ/ (Age 5–6)

The blogpost relates to this article we have written:

Crowe, K., & McLeod, S. (2020). Children's English consonant acquisition in the United States: A review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/doi:10.1044/2020_AJSLP-19-00168

Review of Crowe & McLeod (2020) in The Informed SLP

A few years ago, The Informed SLP described McLeod and Crowe (2018) as the article that broke the SLP internet. This month, they have reviewed our following up paper (Crowe & McLeod, 2020). Here is the article: https://www.theinformedslpmembers.com/reviews?month=08-2020

Children's English consonant acquisition in the United States: A review

Our US consonant acquisition review paper has been published overnight (OPEN ACCESS):

Crowe, K., & McLeod, S. (2020). Children's English consonant acquisition in the United States: A review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_AJSLP-19-00168

The new posters have been uploaded : https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-acquisition/

(The US posters are located below the posters for English acquisition across the whole world. Note the different images in the top right corner – either children around the world or around the US flag)

This paper used the same methods as the McLeod and Crowe (2018) paper that analysed data across 27 languages (OPEN ACCESS).

McLeod, S. & Crowe, K. (2018). Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 27, 1546-1571. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100

To support the application of this research to practice, we have co-authored the following paper that is currently in press (but not yet available online):

Ireland, M., McLeod, S., Farquharson, K., & Crowe, K. (2020, in press June). Evaluating children in U.S. public schools with speech sound disorders: Considering federal and state laws, guidance, and research. Topics in Language Disorders. https://doi.org/10.1097/TLD.0000000000000226

It would have been great to be able to present this work in our invited session at the ASHA convention this year, but it has been cancelled due to COVID-19.

There has been a LOT of positive social media interest in this paper already. For example,

Children’s English consonant acquisition in the United States: A review

The following manuscript has been accepted for publication.
Crowe, K. & McLeod, S. (2020, in press May). Children’s English consonant acquisition in the United States: A review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. 

It accompanies this manuscript (that won the AJSLP editor's award)
McLeod, S. & Crowe, K. (2018). Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 27(4), 1546-1571. doi:10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100

Here is the abstract

Purpose: Speech-language pathologists’ (SLPs) clinical decision-making and consideration of eligibility for services relies on quality evidence, including information about consonant acquisition (developmental norms). The purpose of this review is to describe the typical age and pattern of acquisition of English consonants by children in the United States.  
Method: Data were identified from published journal articles and assessments reporting English consonant acquisition by typically developing children living in the United States. Sources were identified through searching 11 electronic databases, review articles, and the Buros database, and contacting experts. Data describing studies, participants, methodology, and age of consonant acquisition were extracted.
Results: Fifteen studies (six articles and nine assessments) were included, reporting consonant acquisition of 18,907 children acquiring English in the United States. These cross-sectional studies primarily used single-word elicitation. Most consonants were acquired by 5;0 years. The consonants /b, n, m, p, h, w, d/ were acquired by 2;0-2;11 (years;months); /ɡ, k, f, t, ŋ, j/ by 3;0-3;11; /v, ʤ, s, ʧ, l, ʃ, z/ by 4;0-4;11; /ɹ, ð, ʒ/ by 5;0-5;11; and /θ/ by 6;0-6;11 years (ordered by mean age of acquisition, 90% criterion). Variation was evident across studies resulting from different assessments, criteria, and cohorts of children.
Conclusions: These findings echo the cross-linguistic findings of McLeod and Crowe (2018) across 27 languages that children had acquired most consonants by 5;0 years. On average all plosives, nasals, and glides were acquired by 3;11, all affricates by 4;11, all liquids by 5;11 and all fricatives by 6;11 (90% criterion). As SLPs apply this information to clinical decision-making and eligibility decisions, synthesis of knowledge from multiple sources is recommended.

Continued interest in McLeod and Crowe (2018)

There continues to be interest on social media about the "new norms" from the McLeod and Crowe (2018) cross-linguistic review of speech acquisition, including the "SLPs for Evidence Based Practice" Facebook group and Children's Literacy and Speech Sound Lab (see below)

https://buff.ly/33Cn7Wq

 McLeod, S., & Crowe, K. (2018). Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 27, 1546–1571. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100

Free graphics: https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-acquisition 

Supporting students' critical thinking about developmental norms

While at the ASHA 2019 convention in Orlando, FL Dr Kate Crowe and I met Dr. Alyssa Boucher from Boston University and were inspired by her innovative way to support her students' critical thinking using our recent journal article about children's speech acquisition across 27 languages.
She asked her students to

• read the AJSLP journal article, 
• watch my video presentation about the article, 
• listen to Kelly Farquharson and Holly Storkel's episode on See Hear Speak podcast,
• (an alternative could be to listen to the SLPToolkit podcast),
• read the InformedSLP blogpost about how the article broke the SLP internet,  
• download the posters, 
• look at a summary of speech acquisition studies for English
• look at speech acquisition studies across the globe,
• and discuss in class.

**(All of these resources are free to download)
She then gave her students the following exam question:

“A fellow SLP in your school district stops by one day to ask you about the “new norms.” She’s in a panic and worries this will increase her caseload. Using McLeod and Crowe (2018) and the other related resources, (kindly) debunk the “new norms” hysteria and help your colleague to interpret the results of the study and the implications for determining special education eligibility.”

What a great way to support students' critical thinking.

Extra information:

1. Chapter 6 in Children's Speech (McLeod & Baker, 2017) provides a clinically-oriented overview of children's speech acquisition and available evidence. (Currently available for free to US and Canadian students during COVID-19 shutdown at https://studentresponse.redshelf.com/search/?terms=0132755963)
2. We were thrilled that this paper won the Editor's Award from the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology that was presented at the 2019 ASHA convention in Orlando, FL. Some photos are here and some associated media is here.
3. Dr. Kate Crowe and I recently have analysed speech acquisition data from children in the US (excluding the rest of the world). The paper is currently under revision in a journal - and we are hoping that it may be published in 2020.

Dr. Kate Crowe, Dr. Alyssa Boucher, Prof Sharynne McLeod

@SLPToolkit Podcast

InformedSLP blogpost

McLeod & Crowe (2018) infographic poster

Impact! Apparently we "broke the internet" with our speech acquisition paper

Recently I was shown a blog post documenting the impact of the publication of McLeod and Crowe (2018) after the distribution of our speech sound infographics at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association convention.

Here is the blog post talking about the impact of our work: "That one time a journal article on speech sounds broke the SLP internet"
https://www.theinformedslp.com/how-to/that-one-time-a-journal-article-on-speech-sound-norms-broke-the-slp-internet

Here is my blog post about our original journal article (McLeod & Crowe, 2018) with all of our relevant links: https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2018/11/childrens-consonant-acquisition.html

I had heard that our paper and infographics had been of interest to SLPs - particularly in the US - but hadn't realised the extent of discussion about it. I am pleased that its legacy has been to promote extensive discussion about how to identify children for intervention. Kate and I have been invited to discuss our work at the 2019 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association convention, so this should be fun.

Here are some other blog posts about our journal article:

• https://www.banterspeech.com.au/important-update-in-what-order-and-at-what-age-should-my-child-learn-to-say-his-her-consonants-faqs/ 
• https://www.slptoolkit.com/blog/we-have-been-interpreting-the-articulation-norms-all-wrong/

Why some Asian accents swap Ls and Rs in English

Why some Asian accents swap Ls and Rs in English is an excellent YouTube video created by Vox that has been uploaded this week:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yzMUs3badc It has already had over 1 million views and 49K likes. At 2:40, they quote our speech acquisition norms: (McLeod & Crowe, 2018).

ASHA's most shared articles in 2018

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association has published a blog today titled: In case you missed it: Our most shared articles of 2018.
https://academy.pubs.asha.org/2019/02/in-case-you-missed-it-our-most-shared-posts-of-2018/

The first article in the blog was ours!
Children’s Consonant Acquisition in 27 Languages: A Cross-Linguistic Review by Sharynne McLeod and Kathryn Crowe

Here is the altmetric score (275): https://asha.altmetric.com/details/47435915#score
It states:

"Altmetric has tracked 12,465,602 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric."

Children's Consonant Acquisition presentation

I have created an 18 minute video presentation titled "Children's Consonant Acquisition".
It can be downloaded here: https://cloudstor.aarnet.edu.au/plus/s/3Z2fDvDvR4voMhz (58.9MB .mp4 file)

The presentation profiles the following paper:
McLeod, S., & Crowe, K. (2018). Children's consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 27, 1546–1571. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100
 The paper can be downloaded for free here: https://ajslp.pubs.asha.org/article.aspx?articleid=2701897

The presentation will be played at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association convention in Boston next week.

Here is the link to the posters that outline English-speaking children's speech acquisition:
https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2018/10/speech-acquisition-posters.html

The posters can be downloaded for free here:
https://www.csu.edu.au/research/vietspeech/publications

More information and resources about speech acquisition is available from our Multilingual Children's Speech website:
http://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-acquisition
http://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-acq-studies