Tackling the High-Intensity-Practice Challenge in SSD - Guest lecture from Prof Kirrie Ballard

Today we were very honoured to host Prof Kirrie Ballard at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst. She presented a hybrid workshop titled "Tackling the High-Intensity-Practice Challenge in SSD".

Overview of the session • Your client with SSD is now stimulable for their target sound/s • Now, research says they need high intensity practice 3 or more times a week to master this • You can't see clients that often • You give them homework but have no idea how much gets done • Could your clients be improving faster? • In this session we'll discuss your biggest challenges to implementing evidence-based practice and brainstorm ideas you can take back to your clinics and try. We'll get hands-on experience with the one tool, the Say Bananas app, that we designed specifically for this problem. • BYO tablet (iPAD or Android). We will have some extras for those who don't bring one. Note that the Say Bananas app is not available for phones/laptops.

Say Bananas YouTube video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYvRJzDCmQM

Catching up with Grace Kelly in Manchester

Grace Kelly worked with us at Charles Sturt University during 2021 and the beginning of 2022. She was our research assistant on the Say Bananas research. Our research has recently been published:

McLeod, S., Kelly, G., Ahmed, B., & Ballard, K. J. (2023). Equitable access to speech practice for rural Australian children using the SayBananas! mobile game. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2023.2205057 

She moved back to the UK just over a year ago - so it was really lovely that she came to Manchester for the evening to catch up.

In the news: App research helps speech therapy for rural Australian children

It is Speech Pathology Australia Week and the theme is "Good communication builds better communities". CSU has published the following media release: App research helps speech therapy for rural Australian children

https://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/app-research-helps-speech-therapy-for-rural-australian-children

Thanks and bon voyage Grace Kelly

Over the past year Grace Kelly has worked with Prof Kirrie Ballard and myself on Kirrie's AMP Tomorrow Fund grant to investigate the use of the SayBananas! app with children with speech sound disorders across rural Australia. Grace has been a fantastic colleague, and today was her last day before she heads back to the UK. We will miss her a lot - and hope to catch up with her when we get to visit the UK. We are finalising our analysis in order to present our research at the upcoming Speech Pathology Australia National Conference in May and then to submit our work to a journal.

Thanks again Grace!

Speech Pathology Australia National Conference Program

The Speech Pathology Australia National Conference Program has been launched today and the conference will be face-to-face as well as online. It was cancelled in 2020 and online in 2021, so it will be wonderful to see my colleagues again 

 Here are the oral sessions I am co-presenting. 

• M5C: Moving beyond borders with the Culturally Responsive Teamwork Framework (CRTF): Suzanne C. Hopf, Kathryn Crowe, Sarah Verdon, Helen Blake, Sharynne McLeod 
• T3C: Say Bananas! Equitable access to speech intervention for rural children: Sharynne McLeod, Grace Kelly, Beena Ahmed, Kirrie Ballard 
• T6D: Who is ‘correct’ during speech assessment, analysis and diagnosis?: Sharynne McLeod, Sarah Verdon 
• T6E: Bilingual speech and language intervention for Vietnamese-Australian families via telehealth: Sharynne McLeod, Sarah Verdon, Van Tran, Kate Margetson, Cen (Audrey) Wang

Here are the SPARK talks I am co-presenting with honours students

• M3E: Multilingual Fijians students' Fiji English phonological development: Holly McAlister, Suzanne C. Hopf, Sharynne McLeod
• M3C: Student speech pathologists’ perceptions of providing Intelligibility Enhancement via telepractice: Helen L. Blake, Phuong An Nguyen Do, Sharynne McLeod

Say Bananas!

Say Bananas! was built for children with childhood apraxia of speech but can be used for children with any type of speech sound disorder (SSD). Hair et al. (2021) included a sample of 10 children SSD and Prof Kirrie Ballard has just completed a trial with 7 children with cleft palate. 

Here is a Youtube video giving an overview of the app and basic instructions on how to use it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Unh1uKJWwA 

SayBananas! will be launched it in the apps stores soon.

Say Bananas research day

Friday 11 February 2022 was a fantastic day - it was the first day for a very long time that I was on campus due to CSU COVID-19 restrictions. It was the first day for a very long time that I worked face-to-face with people.

Prof Kirrie Ballard travelled from The University of Sydney to analyse data and write up the Say Bananas research with Grace Kelly and myself. It was such a productive day!

Prof Kirrie Ballard, Grace Kelly, Prof Sharynne McLeod

Say Bananas data collection is in full swing+

Grace Kelly is doing a fantastic job with data recruitment and assessing potential participants in our Say Bananas research:

• 54 inquiries
• 3 not eligible
• 11 assessments complete (+5 more this week)
  
• Roll out of the Say Bananas app imminent
• 8 inter-judge reliability checks completed
  

Thanks Grace!

You can see what the app looks like on this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Unh1uKJWwA&t=5s 

Here's the link to participate in the research: https://www.research.net/r/SayBananas

Our research is in the media

CSU Media has published a media release about our latest research and request for participants:

Speech therapy app research needs children in regional and rural Australia

As a result, Grace Kelly has had the following radio interviews:

• ZOOFM Dubbo (Dan Hillard) - 8 July 2021
• Triple M Orange - 8 July 2021
• Triple M Wagga Wagga - 15 July 2021
• ABC Dubbo TBC
  
• 2BS Live and Local TBC

In addition, Nicole McGill has been contacted by the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) to prepare a newstory on waiting lists. It is great to see our research in the public eye.

Ethics approval received to start research with "Say Bananas"

Last week we received ethics approval from Charles Sturt Universtity to commence our research to share the Say Bananas app with children in rural NSW. Grace Kelly gave a presentation about the research to speech pathologists in non-government settings in Orange. Now we have our first participant ready to begin.

Grace Kelly presenting to the speech pathologists in Orange

For more information email gkelly@csu.edu.au, and information about the research project about Say66 and the Say Bananas app is available on social media: 

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Unh1uKJWwA&t=5s 
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/UCanSay66 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ucansay66/ 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/say66