SPAA-C lecture for Finland's speech and language therapists

 Tonight A/Prof Kate Crowe (CVC Adjunct and A/Prof at University of Iceland) and I recorded a lecture on the Speech Participation and Activity Assessment - Children (SPAA-C) for a professional development course for Finland's speech and language therapists. We were invited by Krista Tuohimaa, Head of the Research Unit of Logopedics, University of Oulu, Finland.

McLeod, S., & Crowe, K. (2026, September). Children as informants on their own communication: Speech Participation and Activity Assessment of Children (SPAA-C). Presentation for the Advanced logopedic assessment: Children and adolescents course within the Neurological and Neurodevelopmental Communication Disorders in Adults and Children specialisation program, University of Oulu and University of Helsinki.

 

The SPAA-C is available for free here: https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-assessments/spaa-c

Here is the original article describing its origin:

McLeod, S. (2004). Speech pathologists' application of the ICF to children with speech impairment. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 6(1), 75–81. https://doi.org/10.1080/14417040410001669516 
 

Enjoying research with rural Tasmanian children during week 2 of the CET speech census

On Thursday and Friday this week I have traveled to rural locations to undertake research with 4- and 5-year-old children in Catholic Education Tasmania schools for our CET speech census. 

 The children have been great - and the staff have been welcoming, resourceful, knowledgeable and supportive. I have learned a lot, and understand more about schools and children's speech - as well as how to create the best processes for screening children's speech across CET in 2027. 

 

Rural locations know how to be welcoming. Thanks for the unexpected latte that arrived mid morning and your enthusiasm about our treehouse poster! https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-acquisition/learning-english-consonants

 This is the end of week 2 of screening.  Felicity, Lisa, Sarah, Helen, Ally, Emma and myself have been working with children in schools (either in person or via Zoom). We have met a lot of children - but still have more to go. Next week we will continue :) 

Assessing children's speech in Tasmania

I am in Tasmania this week to assess children's speech across the state as part of our research grant with Catholic Education Tasmania. It is wonderful to visit schools with Felicity Laurence and Lisa Johnson.

This is a really important study. One of the speech assistants aptly named this phase of the research the "CET speech census".

We currently have 785 consent forms and ICS data through Qualitrix. 

Some of the unique experiences from this week:

• Monday and Tuesday - Assessing 53 children across 4 different schools using the International Speech Screen (and some with the DEAP Screener) 
• A baby deer was shown to the children in the classroom we were visiting (very tiny and cute!)
• One child came three times to be assessed (he took his sticker off so we didn't remember he had been assessed before)
• Our treehouse speech sound poster (McLeod & Crowe, 2018) was on the speech room wall at one of the schools
• Tuesday - Negotiating the rain as we walked with children from their classrooms to the allocated research space
• Undertaking research in an art room 
• Enthusiastic children wanting it to be their turn :) 

Sharynne and Felicity ready for a day with Kinder children in Hobart

Sharynne  and Kate's treehouse poster was on the wall in the speech room at a school!

Sharynne and Lisa in the rain

Sharynne  and Lisa about to meet the next group of 4-year-olds

We also met with the private speech pathologists who assess CET children as part of the research on Wednesday morning 

CeTasSSD data collection has begun

The day has finally come that we have begun the research with 1,200 Kinder children in Tasmania. We are using the Australian English version of the International Speech Screener (ISS) and a question from the SPAA-C.  Ally Bennett, Emma Scanlon and I assessed 24 children across 2 schools on the first day (Monday) - which is 2% of the research population. The children and staff were excellent. We have a fun few weeks ahead. Thanks everyone.

Tuesday update - we now have signed consent from 733/1203 (60.93%) students. I assessed another 12 students. Ally and Emma assessed more. 

Thursday update - 166 children had been assessed

Helen Blake, Ally Barrett, Sharynne, Felicity Laurence, Lisa Johnson

Sharynne  with Emma Scanlon after transcription reliability checking

Emma and Ally online

 

Translations of the ICS and SPAA-C

This week we have just uploaded a Nepalese translation of the Intelligibility in Context Scale https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-assessments/ics to the Multilingual children's Speech website.

We also have been contacted by people across the world to translate the SPAA-C into Chinese (Traditional and Simplified) and the ICS into several Indian languages:

Assamese
Bengali
Bodo
Dogri
Kannada
Kashmiri
Konkani
Maithili
Malayalam
Manipuri
Marathi
Odia
Sanskrit
Telugu
Urdu

SPAA-C webpage

The Speech Participation and Activity Assessment of Children (SPAA-C) is designed to support professionals and researchers to understand the lives of children and other important people who surround them.

 Dr Helen Blake has been working with me - and researchers from around the world to translate the SPAA-C. The Hebrew version, along with a number of others has been added to the website this week: https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-assessments/spaa-c

We now have versions in: English,  Afrikaans, Fe’efe’e, German, Hebrew, Jamaican Creole, Polish, and Vietnamese

Invited paper accepted for publication in Portuguese Journal of Speech and Language Therapy

We have just had the following invited paper accepted for publication in the Portuguese Journal of Speech and Language Therapy: 

McLeod, S., Blake, H. L. & Margetson, K. (2024, in press). Enhancing children’s speech using international evidence-based resources. RPTF - Revista Portuguesa de Terapia da Fala [Portuguese Journal of Speech and Language Therapy] https://www.aptf-rptf.com/

 It is wonderful to continue our collaborations with our colleagues in Portugal: https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/search/label/Portuguese

 

Multilingual Children's Speech page views in June 2020

The Multilingual Children's Speech website continues to be a resource for the world.
In June 2020 there were 4,857 page views (3,781 unique page views):

• Intelligibility in Context Scale was the most popular (1,869  page views)
• Speech acquisition page the next most popular (997 page views)
• Speech assessments page was next (577 page views)
• Speech Participation  and Activity Assessment  of Children (SPAA-C) the next (364 page views)

Some interesting images from the Google analytics reports are below:

Children drawing talking in Jamaica

This morning I had a video conference with Dr Karla Washington and Corrine Dutenberg from the University of Cincinnati. Corrine has received a summer scholarship to work with Karla to analyze over 200 drawings from Jamaican preschool children. The children were asked to draw themselves talking to someone. They were also asked to complete the Speech Participation and Activity Assessment - Children (SPAA-C, McLeod, 2004). Their research will be informed by Articles 12 and 13 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. I look forward to seeing the results from their research.

Corrine Dutenberg and Dr Karla Washington