Planning to visit Vietnam

At the end of this month Dr Helen L. Blake and I will be visiting Ha Noi National University of Education in Vietnam. Today we had a meeting with A/Prof Ben Pham to discuss the visit. While we are in Vietnam we have a number of meetings and presentations. We will be presenting:

*Keynote address: Saturday 3^rd October HNUE-Conference
Topic: Supporting speech, language and communication for children with disabilities in Vietnam

*Workshop on ethics on Friday, 2nd October, 2016 
Topic: Ethical considerations in conducting research with children (2 hours including interpretation into Vietnamese)
Host: HNUE, Department of Science and Technology and HNUE ethics council

*Workshop on Monday, 5th October, 2026, 9:00AM-11:30AM and 14:00PM-16:30PM
Topic: Children’s speech assessment and intervention: What’s new? and What’s evidence?
Participants: special education teachers, SLPs and other related professionals
Host: Faculty of Special Education, School of Child Development Sciences-HNUE

Helen, Sharynne, Ben

Invitation to speak in Vietnam

I have just received an invitation to speak in Vietnam later this year at the Ha Noi National University of Education 25 year celebration in conjunction with UNICEF. Congratulations to my colleagues as they celebrate this significant achievement.

A/Prof Ben Pham with Sharynne 

Survey of the speech intelligibility in children with speech sound disorders in Northern Vietnam

The following article has been published in Vietnamese. It is based on the Masters' thesis of Mrs Hang, supervised by Dr. Ben Pham and myself a few years ago.

Nguyễn Thị Hằng, Phạm Thị Bền, Sharynne McLeod, & Phạm Thị Vấn (2026). Khảo sát tính dễ hiểu lời nói của trẻ có rối loạn âm lời nói ở miền bắc Việt Nam [Survey of the speech intelligibility in children with speech sound disorders in Northern Vietnam]. Tạp chí Y học Việt Nam (Vietnam Medical Journal), 558, số 1/2026, 84-88. https://tapchiyhocvietnam.vn/index.php/vmj/article/view/16928

Here is the English abstract

Objective: This study investigated the speech intelligibility of children aged 4–5 years with speech sound disorders (SSD) in Northern Vietnam, using the Vietnamese Intelligibility in Context Scale (ICS-VN). Methods: A total of 51 children were evaluated through caregiver questionnaires and direct assessments, including the ICS-VN, hearing screening, oromotor assessment (OMA), and the Vietnamese Speech Assessment (VSA). Results & Conclusion: The mean ICS-VN score was 3.6 (SD = 0.6). Familiar listeners rated the children’s speech as more intelligible than unfamiliar listeners. ICS-VN scores were negatively correlated with the age at which the child produced their first meaningful word (r = –0.49, p < 0.001).

 

Congratulations Associate Professor Ben Phạm

Associate Professor Ben Phạm with her family
at the Temple of Literature

I am so proud of my colleague Dr Ben Phạm who was promoted to Associate Professor by the Vietnamese Office of Professorship Council.

In 2024 there were only 27 candidates in Education Sciences who were promoted to Associate Professor across the whole of VietNam. Ben was the only one who specialized in Special Education for children with speech and language disorders. 

She received the certificate from the Vietnamese Government on 29 November 2024 at the 1000 year old Temple of Literature in Ha Noi, Viet Nam, the first University in Vietnam.

Ben and I visited the Temple of Literature together in 2016 and dreamed of this day when she would receive an award there https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-temple-of-literature-in-ha-noi_2.html

Congratulations Ben.

I am so honoured to continue collaborating with Ben in many ways since she began her PhD with me in 2014. Here is a paper that we wrote together that has just been published 

Phạm, B., & McLeod, S. (2024). Considerations of dialect on the identification of speech sound disorder in Vietnamese-speaking children. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 59(6), 2208-2216. https://doi.org/10.1111/1460-6984.12992

Congratulations Associate Professor Ben Pham

Congratulations to Associate Professor Ben Pham who has just been promoted by the government of Vietnam. We are so proud of you!

Ten years ago Ben came to Bathurst to undertake her PhD with me. It has been an honour to work alongside Ben for the past decade. Her research has had a huge impact on the world's understanding of how Vietnamese children learn to speak.

Our VietSpeech team is writing a lot of chapters

The work of our VietSpeech team (https://www.csu.edu.au/research/vietspeech/overview) continues to have impact across the world. We have been invited to write a number of different book chapters based on our research. We are currently working on these chapters:

• Tran, V. H., Margetson, K., Pham, B., Verdon, S., McLeod, S., Blake, H. L., & Faulks, S. (in preparation). Vietnamese English. In Y. Holt, K. N. Washington, & E. Babatsouli (Eds.) Linguistic varieties in North America: A primer for speech and language practitioners. Multilingual Matters.
• Margetson, K., McLeod, S., & Verdon, S. (in preparation). Diagnosing speech sound disorders in multilingual children who speak Vietnamese and English. In K. N. Washington, K. Crowe, T Másdóttir (Eds.). Diagnosing speech sound disorders in multilingual children. Routledge.

These chapters have just been accepted for publication:

• Margetson, K., McLeod, S., Verdon, S., Tran, V. H., & Phạm, B. (2025). English + Vietnamese speech development. In S. McLeod (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of speech development in languages of the world. Oxford University Press.
• Phạm, B. & Margetson, K., McLeod, S. + Tran, V. H. & Verdon, S. (2025). Vietnamese speech development. In S. McLeod (Ed.). The Oxford handbook of speech development in languages of the world. Oxford University Press.

Dr Van Tran, Prof Sharynne McLeod, Dr Helen Blake,
Dr Ben Phạm, Dr Kate Margetson, A/Prof Sarah Verdon

These chapters have been published in 2024:

• Tran, V. H., McLeod, S., Verdon, S., Margetson, K., & Phạm, B. (2024). Vietnamese-Australian families: Children’s language competence and home language maintenance. In L. Mahony, S. McLeod, A. Salamon, & J. Dwyer (Eds.), Early childhood voices: Children, families, professionals (pp. 135-150). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56484-0_1015 
• Margetson, K., McLeod, S., & Verdon, S. (2024). Diagnosing speech sound disorder in bilingual Vietnamese-English-speaking children: Are English-only assessments sufficient? In E. Babatsouli (Ed.). Multilingual acquisition and learning: A ecosystemic view to diversity. (pp. 217-245). John Benjamins Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.67.08mar

Congratulations Sarah Faulks on your Honours submission

Congratulations to Sarah Faulks who has completed her honours thesis titled: Multilingual language assessment for Vietnamese-Australian children 

Her thesis has been supervised by A/Prof Sarah Verdon, myself, and Dr Van Tran.

We had a online submission party yesterday.

Sarah's online honours celebration

On 17th October, Sarah will present her Honours thesis in order to conclude the requirements for her degree. Congratulations Sarah. It has been a pleasure to be on your supervisory team.

International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB14) - presentations from CSU

There were three presentations from CSU at this week's International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB14) at Macquarie University in Sydney:

• Keynote - "Cross-linguistic perspectives on children’s speech development" - Sharynne McLeod
  
• Workshop - "Home language maintenance: Connecting children, families and classrooms" - VietSpeech (Sharynne McLeod, Kate Margetson, Van Tran) and Little Multilingual Minds (Paola Escudero, Gloria Pino Escobar, Chloé Diskin-Holdaway)
  
• Poster - "Speech sound development of Fijian school-aged children" - Holly McAlister, Suzanne Hopf & Sharynne McLeod

Holly McAlister presented her research

Sharynne's keynote

Dr Van Tran, Prof Sharynne McLeod, Dr Chloé Diskin-Holdaway,
Prof Paola Escudero, Dr Gloria Pino Escobar, Kate Margetson

VietSpeech superheros ready for the workshop
Kate Margetson, Sharynne McLeod, Van Tran

International collaboration to support children with hearing loss in Vietnam

This evening I met with Dr Ben Pham in Vietnam and Dr Kate Crowe in Iceland. Ben has collected speech, intelligiblity and attitudinal data from children with hearing loss. We had a fascinating conversation about the difference about the cultural groups of people who recognise themselves as d/Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH). I look forward to working together on the analysis and write up of this interesting study.

Dr Kaate Crowe (Iceland), Sharynne (Australia), Dr Ben Pham (Vietnam)

Trinh Foundation

Since 2010 I have supported the Trinh Foundation and the development of speech and language therapy (SALT) in Vietnam in many small ways. Since this time so much has been achieved. Thanks for your certificate that arrived today.

Invited presentation in Da Nang, Vietnam

Today I presented an invited lecture in Vietnam (held for over 70 delegates in Da Nang and others online). The seminar was organised for speech and language therapists in Vietnam and was sponsored by:

• Medical Committee Netherlands – Vietnam (MCNV) 
• Da Nang University of Medical Technology and Pharmacy
  
• US Aid 
• VietHealth 
• Trinh Foundation

The 6 hour agenda profiled the work of the graduate speech and language therapists from the Bachelors and Masters programs that have recently begun in Vietnam and five guest speakers including A/Prof Sarah Verdon and myself.

My presentation was titled "The association between children’s communication skills and academic performance" 

Professor Sharynne McLeod

A/Professor Sarah Verdon

Here is some of the information that was provided in my letter of invitation: 

"First of all, I would like to thank you for your continuous valuable expertise and spirit support for our ST [speech therapy] project in particular and for the ST education development in Vietnam in general. 

Secondly, I would like to introduce very briefly about MCNV - TFA's ST Edu development project. As you may have known, MCNV and TFA have been collaborating to implement this ST project since 2017 to run a MSALT course at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Ho Chi Minh city to train a group of SALT traineers for 04 medical universities in Vietnam and a BSALT course at the University of Medical Technology and Pharmacy in Da Nang to mainly pilot a Vietnamese-contextualised BSALT curriculum which can be applied by the 04 medical universities which have trained MSALT lecturer from the MSALT course mentioned above. These are the first official ST degree courses in Vietnam. The MSALT course finished last April and the students were awarded with master degrees but they are still doing their clinical internships. The BSALT course will finish this September, by the end of the project cycle and the project will close this September, 2022. 

Finally but mainly, I would like to be on behalf of MCNV and MCNV's ST project counterparts to invite you to present your research on "The association between children’s communication skills and academic performance" at our ST thematic workshop on 22nd September. Time slot for your presentation is at 15.40 - 16.00 VN time. This is one of the project closing activities by MCNV, TFA and partner universities, planned as a hybrid workshop."

I really have appreciated the warm emails received after my presentation. Here is an excerpt from one: "Thank you so much for your fascinating presentation today with regards to children’s communication skills and academic performance. That’s absolutely terrific presenting. I’m very much keen on learning the findings from your research...I also noticed that you have acknowledged the indigenous community before you started the presentation. May I know the story behind it? ... Once again, it’s an inspiration to be able to listen to your talk. It was very pleasant to hear your voice."

IALP's new book: Addressing communication disorders in unserved and underserved populations

The following book has just been published to celebrate the centenary of IALP: 

Levey. S. & Enderby, P. (Eds.). Addressing communication disorders in unserved and underserved populations. J&R Press. 

We wrote the following chapters 

Chapter 8: Phạm, B., McLeod, S. & Verdon, S., Margetson, K. & Tran, V. H. (2022). Supporting the communication of underserved children in Vietnam. In S. Levey & P. Enderby & (Eds.). Addressing communication disorders in unserved and underserved populations (pp. 73-83). J&R Press. 

Chapter 10: Grech, H., Wren, Y., Pascoe, M., & McLeod, S. & Hopf, S. (2022). Speech sound disorders in underserved or unserved populations. In S. Levey & P. Enderby & (Eds.). Addressing communication disorders in unserved and underserved populations. J&R Press. 

 

Here is the description of the book on the publisher's website (https://www.jr-press.co.uk/the-unserved.html#):

The International Association of Logopaedics and Phoniatrics (IALP), now called The International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders, was established in 1924. Its objective is to bring together professionals to promote research and clinical practice to support the needs of those with communication and swallowing disorders who lack health and other basic services. The Unserved, authored by members of the Association, celebrates 100 years of the IALP by presenting ideas to assist all those who work with children and adults who have difficulty in communicating or swallowing in order to improve services for unserved and underserved communities. It offers strategies to address disorders and conditions that affect many areas of everyday life and which are exacerbated by lack of adequate health, education and social services.

Vietnamese refugees remembered

Last week I caught up with Emeritus Professor Lindy McAllister in Brisbane. In addition to discussing many issues, we visited the statue that states

IN MEMORY

Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese boat people perished at sea on their journeys seeking freedom from 1975-1995.

IN GRATITUDE

In the hour of our greatest need - you were there. We thank you Australia.

The Unserved: Addressing the needs of those with communication disorders

I have co-authored two chapters in the following book: The Unserved: Addressing the needs of those with communication disorders https://www.jr-press.co.uk/the-unserved.html edited by Sandra Levey and Pamela Enderby.

• Chapter 8 - Supporting the Communication of Underserved Children in Vietnam 
• Chapter 10 - Speech Sound Disorders in Underserved or Unserved Populations 

It is an honour to be published in this important book. Here is the description:

The International Association of Logopaedics and Phoniatrics (IALP), now called The International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders, was established in 1924. Its objective is to bring together professionals to promote research and clinical practice to support the needs of those with communication and swallowing disorders who lack health and other basic services. The Unserved, authored by members of the Association, celebrates 100 years of the IALP by presenting ideas to assist all those who work with children and adults who have difficulty in communicating or swallowing in order to improve services for unserved and underserved communities. It offers strategies to address disorders and conditions that affect many areas of everyday life and which are exacerbated by lack of adequate health, education and social services. Each chapter will be available as a free download after publication in summer 2022 on application to the Association. The print copy of the book will be published in October 2023 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the founding of IALP.

 

Graduation of the first Master of Speech and Language Therapy (MSALT) course in Vietnam

Today was the graduation of the first Master of Speech and Language Therapy (MSALT) students in Vietnam. I was honoured to work with Dr Ben Pham to co-supervise the research undertaken by two of these students: Hằng Nguyen and Vấn Phạm.

Here is the background about the 2-year course

The Master of SALT (MSALT course) is a component of the Project. UMP HCMC and MCNV collaborated to run this MSALT course with technical consultancy from TFA. The goal of cooperation was to train a group of 14 SALT Master trainers for future SALT education at four medical universities of HCMC, Da Nang, Hue, Hai Duong and the medical secondary school of Tay Ninh in Vietnam. The course ran for two years from November 2019 to November 2021. During the MSALT course, the 14 students did 14 research for their graduation. The students successfully defended their theses in November 2021 and were awarded with graduation degrees on 28th April 2022. 

Here is the background about the funding

For the period from 2017 to 2022, through the DISTINCT project by VietHealth, MCNV received a fund from USAID to run the “Development of Speech and Language Education in VietNam”. The Project aimed at establishing a solid foundation for development of an official education system of speech and language therapy (SALT) profession in Vietnam. The University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh city (UMP HCMC) and Da Nang University of Medical Technology and Pharmacy (DUMTP) participated in this Project as implementing partners to MCNV. Trinh Foundation Australia (TFA) participated in this Project as a technical consultation partner to MCNV. 

Congratulations Hằng Nguyen, Vấn Phạm and your colleagues. What a wonderful day. We look forward to your impact on the speech and language therapy profession in Vietnam.

Congratulations to Professor Lindy McAllister whose >20 year vision for the profession of speech and language therapy in Vietnam has been realised through this graduation ceremony.

PhD proposal title: Phonological intervention for Vietnamese children with speech sound disorders

Today I met online with Nguyễn Thị Anh Thủ and Dr Ben Phạm to discuss her reading and to plan her PhD proposal title: "Phonological intervention for Vietnamese children with speech sound disorders". It is exciting to work with students at the beginning of their candidature. Miss Thủ is studying at Hanoi National University of Education.

Teaching in the first Masters of Speech and Language Therapy course in Vietnam

This morning I received the following email thanking me and my 20 Australian colleagues for our contribution to teaching the first 14 Masters graduates of the Speech and Language Therapy course in Vietnam. The course was undertaken at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Ho Chi Minh City (UMP HCMC), Vietnam. 

Dear international SALT lecturers, mentors, clinical supervisors, thesis research supervisors, 

I am Mrs. Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy and I work as a Program Coordinator for my organization, MCNV, and in charge of the SALT Education Development Project in partnership with TFA since 2017. Under this project, the first Master of SALT course was implemented with 14 students at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Ho Chi Minh city (UMP HCMC), Vietnam. The 14 MSALT students have finished their training program and will be awarded with degrees at the end of April 2022. To come to this point of achievement, your contribution in the forms of lecturing, mentoring, clinical supervision, thesis research supervision has been invaluable. 

To celebrate the completion of the first MSALT course and to congratulate the MSALT students on their graduation, MCNV and UMP HCMC will jointly organize a WORKSHOP on SHARING FINDINGS FROM SOME RESEARCH ON SPEECH AND LANGUAGE THERAPY IN VIETNAM. On behalf of MCNV, I would like to send this email to invite you to join the Workshop online. 

Yours Sincerely, 

Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy, M.Phil Coordinator Disability Program- MCNV Vietnam A: E3 Trung Tu Diplomatic Compound 6 Dang Van Ngu Str, Ha Noi City T: (+84) 24 3835 9005/ ext 25 M: +84 (0) 986607351 W: mcnv.org FB: MCNV

International Symposium on Monolingual and Bilingual Speech 2022

The International Symposium on Monolingual and Bilingual Speech (ISMBS) (6-9 April 2022) is a hybrid conference with both on site and online presentations and events at the Department of Communicative Disorders at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (Université des Acadiens et Créoles). https://speechandlanguage.louisiana.edu/international-symposium-monolingual-and-bilingual-speech-ismbs-2022 

Kate Margetson and I are chairing a session each (starting ~6:30am our time!) and over three days are virtually presenting three papers from our VietSpeech research:

1. VietSpeech: Vietnamese-Australian children’s speech and language competence (Sharynne McLeod, Sarah Verdon, Kate Margetson, Van H. Tran, Cen Wang, Ben Pham) 
2. The VietSpeech Multilingual Transcription Protocol: A 4-step process for transcribing Vietnamese-Australian children’s speech (Kate Margetson, Sharynne McLeod, Sarah Verdon, Van H. Tran) 
3. Cross-linguistic transfer during multilingual speech acquisition: A longitudinal Vietnamese-English case study (Kate Margetson, Sharynne McLeod, Sarah Verdon, Van H. Tran) 

Additionally, I am on the ISMBS International Scientific Committee https://speechandlanguage.louisiana.edu/international-symposium-monolingual-and-bilingual-speech-ismbs/ismbs-international-scientific

It has been an inspiring conference with fascinating papers from across the world.

Welcome Nguyen Thi Anh Thu

Today was our first meeting with Nguyễn Thị Anh Thủ. Dr Ben Phạm and I are Miss Thủ's PhD supervisors. She is studying in the special education faculty at Ha Noi National University in Viet Nam. It was exciting to meet with her and to plan her future studies specialising on intervention for children with speech sound disorders.

Dr Ben Phạm, Sharynne, Miss Thủ

Keynote - 2nd International Conference on Innovations in Learning Instruction and Teacher Education - Hanoi National University of Education

This weekend, I am a keynote speaker and topic chair at the 2nd International Conference on Innovations in Learning Instruction and Teacher Education (ILITE) Conference which is held on 11th and 12th December 2021 at Hanoi National University of Education (Vietnam). 

The conference is co-organised by Hanoi National University of Education (Vietnam) University of Cologne (Germany) University of Bayreuth (Germany) National Taiwan Normal University York University - UNESCO Chair in Reorienting Education towards Sustainability (Canada) 

The Conference brings together education professionals from over the world to share their knowledge and practices for working towards Education for Sustainable Development and achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 4 on Quality Education by 2030. 

Here is my keynote presentation: 

The association between children’s communication skills and academic performance 

Abstract. Our communication ability impacts our identity, relationships, education, and employment. National prosperity, economy, health, wellbeing, and security requires successful communication. The foundations of speech, language and communication are established in early childhood. This is recognised in the Vietnamese Government’s Developmental Standards for 5-year-old children that includes the standard “to speak clearly”. Some children have speech, language and communication needs. The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) has studied 10,000 children since 2003. This presentation will describe the educational and social outcomes of children from the LSAC study. Australian children with speech, language and communication needs have significantly lower academic achievement in reading, writing, spelling, grammar, and numeracy in grades 1, 3, and 5, slower progress in reading, writing, and overall school achievement at 8–9 years, poorer school outcomes with less positive trajectories at 12–13 years, and significantly lower academic achievement at 14–15 years. Additionally, Australian children with speech, language and communication needs have reported they experience significantly more bullying, have fewer friends, and do not enjoy attending school as much as their peers. This presentation will conclude with ways that educators in Vietnam and Australia can support children with speech, language and communication needs for sustainable education in the changing context. 

 I am also the chair of Session II. B. Early childhood and special education Room: 201

Chair: Prof. Sharynne McLeod (Charles Sturt University, Australia)

Discussant: Prof Shihkuan Hsu (National Taiwan University) 

1. Quality programs, quality teachers: Early childhood teacher programs in Australia Wendy Boyd (Southern Cross University, Australia) 

2. Support from home for early learning and development of children under five years old from ethnic minorities in Viet Nam Bui T. Lam, Pham T. Ben, Tran T. K. Lien, Nguyen T.M. Dung (HNUE, Vietnam) Ho Sy Hung (Hong Duc University, Vietnam) 

3. Tools to Measure Vietnamese Language and Reading in the Early School Years Giang T. Pham (San Diego State University, USA)