Congratulations to Dr Kate Margetson and Fiona Baybrooks who are working so well on the implementation science research for the Speech Assessments in Children's Home Languages (SACHL). Last week, Kate applied the SACHL to the assessment of a child who spoke English, Swahili, French and two other languages - and it worked!
Tonight (7:30-9:00) I was online with Dr Kate Margetson and a group of speech pathologists who speak Cantonese and/or Mandarin/Putonghua. They were advising us about how to adapt the SACHL for children who speak Cantonese and/or Mandarin/Putonghua. What a useful conversation - great insights were shared.
One participant mentioned https://www.evalubox.com/language-sample for language sampling - but none were aware of a similar tool for speech sampling.
We have just learned the outcome of our Speech Pathology Australia National Conference submissions for 2026. In the letter they wrote
"This year we received 326 submissions, reflecting a 22% increase on last year. With limited presentation space available, only around one-third could be included in the final program"
While some of our papers were not accepted for presentation - the following papers were accepted:
I am glad that two of my PhD students' papers were accepted.
This week Dr Helen Blake and I are attending and presenting at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention in Washington DC. This year ASHA is celebrating its centenary - 100 years.
Here are our presentations:
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| Culturally Appropriate Assessment of Multilingual Children in International Contexts - Helen L. Blake, Sharynne McLeod, Krisztina Zjado |
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| Culturally Appropriate Assessment of Multilingual Children in International Contexts |
ASHA is always a time of catching up with friends and colleagues from across the world - and making new friends and colleagues.
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| Sharynne McLeod, Gregg Lof, Rhea Paul |
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| Sharynne McLeod, Rebecca McCauley, Lynn Williams |
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| Helen Blake and Sharynne McLeod on day 1 |
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| Prof Karla Washington, Sharynne McLeod, Nicole Bazzocchi, Helen Blake |
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| Current and Past ASHA staff: Brooke Hallowell, Vicki Deal-Williams (ASHA CEO) Lynn Williams, Arlene Pietrantron, Sharynne McLeod |
We have been working on our presentations for speech-language pathologists in the USA as part of the Speech Sound Disorders Series https://www.bethebrightest.com/en/events/speech-sound-disorders-series
The series includes a 90-minute live offering, along with pre-recorded, on-demand content. This year's series is designed to challenge outdated assumptions and provide clear answers to common questions.
Here is information from the website:
Welcome to the Speech Sound Disorders Series for 2025—a fresh look at how we treat speech sound disorders, grounded in what we know now. This year, we’re placing a strong focus on updated, evidence-based practices that reflect the evolving landscape of our field. Joining the series are international experts Drs. Kelly Farquharson and Sharynne McLeod, bringing global insights and current research to deepen our understanding. From the nuances of treating R to conducting effective multilingual assessments, they’ll guide us through practical strategies that are informed, inclusive, and responsive to today’s clinical challenges.
The series includes: * The 90-min live session, and the replay, co-presented by Drs. Sharynne McLeod and Kelly Farquharson: "Clinical Use of Speech Sound Acquisition Data" * A 60-min on-demand course by Dr. Farquharson: "/ɹ/ you frustrated by working on /ɹ/? Try facilitative contexts!" * An 120-min on-demand course by Drs. McLeod, Kate Margetson, and Helen Blake: "Multilingual Children’s Speech Assessment: A Contemporary Global Update"
This year's series is designed to challenge outdated assumptions and provide clear answers to common questions. Our presenters are passionate about helping clinicians grow in confidence and competence. With their support—and expertise —you’ll walk away with sharper tools, broader perspective, and renewed clarity in how you treat speech sound disorders today.
Here is some more information about our pre-recorded presentation
Multilingual Children’s Speech Assessment: A Contemporary Global Update Distinguished Professor Sharynne McLeod, Ph.D. Dr Helen L. Blake, Ph.D., Dr. Kate Margetson, Ph.D. Children’s Voices Centre, Charles Sturt University, Australia Learn how to identify multilingual children with speech sound disorders using the latest evidence from 130 languages. This course covers children’s speech development, assessment, analysis, and differential diagnosis, including practical application of the Speech Assessment of Children’s Home Language(s) (SACHL). https://www.bethebrightest.com/en/courses/multilingual-children-s-speech-assessment-a-contemporary-global-update
Dr Helen Blake, Dr Kate Margetson and I have had a number of invitations to present to audiences about supporting multilingual children's speech. We are working on the presentations, handout, and short videos this week.
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| Sharynne and Helen recording a video about their invited presentation |
Congratulations Kate Margetson who has just had the following manuscript accepted for publication that was written during her postdoc It is the next step in the research about the Speech Assessment of Children’s Home Language(s) (SACHL)
Margetson, K. & McLeod, S. (2025). Multilingual speech assessment: Using an implementation science framework to explore acceptability of the Speech Assessment of Children’s Home Language(s) (SACHL). American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Advance online publication.
Here is the abstract
Purpose: The Speech Assessment of Children’s Home Language(s) (SACHL) offers a new, evidence-based clinical protocol for speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to assess speech in unfamiliar languages. This study used implementation science to investigate SLPs’ current multilingual speech assessment practices, determine the prospective acceptability of the SACHL, and compare current confidence to prospective confidence with the SACHL.
Method: The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) and Theoretical Framework of Acceptability (TFA) were used to explore innovation deliverers’ (SLPs’ and student SLPs) prospective acceptability of the innovation (SACHL). Attendees at in-person and online SACHL presentations were invited to participate. 360 participants commenced an online questionnaire exploring current practices, transcription skills, confidence and acceptability of the SACHL. Statistical tests compared attendees at different presentations, SLPs and students SLPs, and monolingual and multilingual participants.
Results: The majority of participants indicated low current confidence in assessing multilingual children. Most SLPs assessed, transcribed, and analyzed multilingual children’s speech in English; but rarely or never applied these practices in children’s home language(s). The majority of participants rated the SACHL as being culturally responsive, well-designed, easy to understand, and that it would increase diagnostic accuracy. There were concerns around the time burden in using the SACHL. Most (87.45%) indicated they would like to use the SACHL in clinical practice, and there was a statistically significant improvement between current confidence and prospective confidence.
Conclusions: The SACHL was evaluated by SLPs and student SLPs to be an acceptable clinical protocol to assess children’s speech in unfamiliar languages.
Prof Lynn Williams has spent 1.5 days with with Dr Kate Margetson discussing the Speech Assessment in Children's Home Languages (SACHL). Last week they met at the Charles Sturt University North Sydney campus and this week online. Her insights have been invaluable.
Today Dr Kate Margetson and I discussed many topics including data analysis for our work on the SACHL, very positive feedback on a journal article, a book chapter, and page proofs on her latest journal article:
Margetson, K., McLeod, S., & Verdon, S. (2025, in press June). Cross-linguistic transfer in Vietnamese-English speech. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools.
We are working with Adam Lavelle from CSU to create an online course for the Speech Assessment of Children's Home Language(s) (SACHL)
https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-assessments/sachl
Today we spent time focusing on partners to head towards the SPRINT process in August.
Kate Margetson has worked with me 2 days a week for 18 months on her postdoc - which concludes now. Her postdoc was funded by a Commonwealth grant to the Rural Health Research Institute.
It has been a VERY productive time focusing on supporting speech-language pathologists to work with multilingual children in unfamiliar languages.
The end of Kate's postdoc coincided with the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association (ICPLA) conference in Patras, Greece. Kate presented two papers from her PhD and postdoc and had so many opportunities to network and plan the next steps of her research journey.
It has been such a privilege to work with Kate and learn from her. I am glad she has a continuing position as a lecturer in the speech pathology course at Charles Sturt University so that we can continue to collaborate as colleagues.
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| Kate presenting work from her postdoc at ICPLA |
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| Kate and Sharynne in Corinth on the way home from ICPLA |
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| Helen Blake, Sharynne and Kate Margetson at the ICPLA conference dinner |
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| Kate Margetson discussed the SACHL with the President of the International Phonetics Association (IPA) |
The RHRI Symposium was held 17-18 June in Orange to celebrate the research funded by a grant to the Charles Sturt University Rural Health Research Institute from the Commonwealth of Australia, represented by the Department of Health (Grant Activity 4-DGEJZ1O/4-CW7UT14).
We presented (virtually) two papers based on the successful outcomes of Project 8: – Improving access to speech pathology services for rural children with speech, language and communication needs
Dr Kate Margetson has been working with me as a postdoc for 2-days per week for the past 1.5 years. It has been an amazing time of developing the SACHL using the implementation science processes. We will end her postdoc in Greece at the ICPLA conference. Congratulations Kate on all you have achieved so far - I know that your work will continue to inspire SLPs' practice and change multilingual children's communication capacity.
Aim: To equip rural speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to work cross-culturally and cross-linguistically, especially in languages they do not speak
Outcomes against objectives:
Outputs (Grants, Publications, etc.):
Journal articles
Presentations
CONGRATULATIONS KATE! What an amazing legacy!
Today Dr Kate Margetson and I had the privilege of learning from Emeritus Professor Lindy McAllister. Lindy gave us advice about Kate's postdoc data - and undertaking the appropriate qualitative analysis. Lindy has co-edited two very helpful books on the topic:
Thanks Lindy!
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| Lindy, Vida and Sharynne |
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| Dr Kate Margetson, Sharynne and Lindy discussing qualitative analysis of SACHL data |
Today I had a fascinating day advising colleagues on how to consider the speech of children who speak languages other than English. The children's parents were concerned about their speech - and the current processes only allow for assessment in English.
We talked about the usefulness of the following websites:
and the processes that are recommended using the SACHL - https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-assessments/sachl
Congratulations to Dr Kate Margetson who received the Charles Sturt University Higher Degree Research Medal this week at the Bathurst graduation ceremony. There are only three medals per year awarded - only one person per Faculty per year - so this is a very significant achievement. Congratulations Kate - we are so proud of you!
Kate's PhD was titled: Moving Beyond Monolingual Practices with Multilingual Children: Learning from Vietnamese-English–Speaking Children, Families, and Professionals https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/en/publications/moving-beyond-monolingual-practices-with-multilingual-children-le . Her PhD supervisors were Prof Sharynne McLeod and A/Prof Sarah Verdon.
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| Distinguished Professor Sharynne McLeod, Dr Kate Margetson, Vice Chancellor Renee Leon |
Potential university medal awardees are nominated by the SubDean (Graduate Studies) based on their examiners' reports, academic prizes and/or scholarships; research outputs from the doctoral or master by research (refereed publications, conference proceedings, journal articles, etc.); and the impact of the research both in terms of actual and potential outcomes for industry, government, professional organisations, business and community (https://www.csu.edu.au/division/vcoffice/ogca/governance/university-medals/higher-degree-by-research-university-medal).
Kate's PhD extended the work of our Australian Research Council Discovery Grant: VietSpeech (https://www.csu.edu.au/research/vietspeech/overview). She has published and presented many papers from her PhD. Since completing her PhD, Kate has been undertaking a postdoc funded by the Rural Health Research Institute to use implementation science to continue the development of the Speech Assessment of Children’s Home Languages (SACHL, Margetson & McLeod, 2025) (https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-assessments/sachl).
The Children's Voices Centre staff had a wonderful time celebrating with our graduates, Dr Kate Margetson and Dr. Melissa Brunner during the graduation ceremony.
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| Children's Voices Centre: Dr Helen L. Blake, A/Prof Tamara Cumming, A/Prof Kathy Cologon, Prof Sharynne McLeod, Dr Carolyn Gregoric |
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| Staff from the Children's Voices Centre and School of Education |
Thank you so much to the informative and knowledgeable members of our focus group who have provided helpful advice about the development of the SACHL - phase 2 of our implementation science research. They agreed to have their photo take after tonight's session (session 3).
Today Kate Margetson and I met with the DLT team to discuss the development of our SACHL shortcourse. Nik Chalkaranje and Adam Lavelle were enthusiastic and helpful.
Today Dr Kate Margetson and I met with the CSU team led by Nik Ichalkaranje to start the process of the development of a micro-credential and short course for the SACHL
https://www.csu.edu.au/division/learning-teaching/microcredentials-and-short-courses
https://www.csu.edu.au/division/learning-teaching/microcredentials-and-short-courses/design-process
Other members of the team who were present were Amanda Marks, Amber Marks, Jessica Wilkinson, and Diarmuid Kelly.
We are excited about this opportunity
Today Dr Kate Margetson and I presented a 2-hour invited seminar titled "Help! How can I support multilingual children? Speech assessment of children’s home language(s) (SACHL)" at the Central West Speechies' PD Day in Orange.
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| Karen Trengove (Learn2Communicate), Dr Kate Margetson (CSU), Prof Sharynne McLeod (CSU), Dr Rebecca Sutherland (The University of Sydney) |
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| Dr Kate Margetson describing data from our research |
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| Dr Kate Margetson describing the SACHL |
This presentation was a really important day for Kate's postdoctoral research. We have had a 18month grant from the Rural Health Research Institute (RHRI) to consider how speech pathologists can support multilingual children, particularly in rural areas. Kate presented our work on the SACHL:
https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-assessments/sachl
The attendees both provided a wonderful audience for research translation, but also for providing advice about how to make the SACHL better for all.
