Published book chapter in Linguistic Varieties in North America

Margetson, K., Tran, V. H., Blake, H. L., Verdon, S., Phạm, B., & McLeod, S. (2026). Speech and language of Vietnamese-English-speaking children and their families. In E. Babatsouli, Y. F. Holt, & K. N. Washington (Eds.), Linguistic varieties in North America: A guide for speech and language practitioners. (pp. 308-320) Multilingual Matters. https://doi.org/10.21832/BABATS2682 

A wonderful collaboration based on our VietSpeech research. The best thing about this chapter is that all of the co-authors are my ex-PhD students :) How lovely to see ongoing collaborations between Kate, Van, Helen, Sarah and Ben

Our Italian book has arrived

Our chapter, written in Italian has arrived - it is an honour to be in this important book that has been created for the 

Margetson, K., McLeod, S., & Blake, H. L. (2025). Gli Speech Sound Disorders nei bambini plurilingue [Speech sound disorders in multilingual children]. In S. Piazzalunga, R. Salvadorini, N. Pizzorni, F. Todaro, & A. Schindler (Eds.). Speech sound disorders: Evidenze scientifiche e buone prassi riabilitative [Scientific evidence and best rehabilitative practices] (pp. 415-432). Erickson University & Research. https://www.erickson.it/it/speech-sound-disorders

Italian book chapter has been published - Speech sound disorders: Evidenze scientifiche e buone prassi riabilitative

 I am very pleased to see that our invited chapter has been published (in Italian) in the following book:

Margetson, K., McLeod, S., & Blake, H. L. (2025). Gli Speech Sound Disorders nei bambini plurilingue [Speech sound disorders in multilingual children]. In S. Piazzalunga, R. Salvadorini, N. Pizzorni, F. Todaro, & A. Schindler (Eds.). Speech sound disorders: Evidenze scientifiche e buone prassi riabilitative [Scientific evidence and best rehabilitative practices] (pp. 415-432). Erickson University & Research. https://www.erickson.it/it/speech-sound-disorders

It is exciting to see that this book will be used across Italy. Congratulations to the editors on the compilation of this important book.

 Here is the email we received from the editors:

Dear Colleagues,

First of all, we would like to wish you all a very happy New Year.

We are pleased to let you know that the Italian book on Speech Sound Disorders has finally been published: https://www.erickson.it/it/speech-sound-disorders

... Thank you for this wonderful achievement. We hope that this volume will become a reference textbook for Italian undergraduate and postgraduate Speech and Language Therapy programmes. The book will also be officially presented at the Italian Congress of Phoniatrics and Speech and Language Therapy in the coming months.

Thank you once again, and best wishes from all of us.

Silvia, Renata, Francesca, Nicole and Antonio

Silvia Piazzalunga, PhD
Speech-Language Pathologist, Adjunct Professor
Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences "L. Sacco"
"L. Sacco" Hospital
University of Milano, Italy

 

Book chapter accepted

 This morning we learned that the following book chapter has been accepted for publication

Margetson, K., Tran, V. H., Blake, H. L., Verdon, S., Phạm, B., & McLeod, S., (2025, in press March). Speech and language of Vietnamese-English-speaking children and their families. In Y. Holt, K. N. Washington, & E. Babatsouli (Eds.) Linguistic varieties in North America: A primer for speech and language practitioners. Multilingual Matters.

Congratulations team!

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

Author meetings for The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World

This week I have held two meetings (to accommodate the world's timezones) for the chapter authors of the The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World. It has been wonderful to see everyone together on the screen and to celebrate that the book will be submitted soon and published in 2025.

Chapter authors attending meeting 1 - Wednesday at 8am Sydney time

 

Chapter authors attending meeting 2 - Thursday at 7pm Sydney time

Here is the final table of contents:

The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World
Editor: Sharynne McLeod
1.    Children’s speech development around the world: An introduction
2.    Cultural considerations regarding children’s speech development
3.    Researching children’s speech development
4.    Articulatory and phonological foundations of children’s speech development
5.    Speech assessment of children’s home languages (SACHL): A clinical protocol
6.    Afrikaans speech development
7.    Akan speech development
8.    Arabic (Egyptian) speech development
9.    Arabic (Kuwaiti) speech development
10.    Arabic (Lebanese) speech development
11.    Azerbaijani/Azeri Turkish speech development
12.    Bulgarian speech development
13.    Cantonese speech development
14.    Danish speech development
15.    Dutch speech development
16.    English (African American) speech development
17.    English (Appalachian) speech development
18.    English (Australian) speech development
19.    English (Cajun) speech development
20.    English (Canadian) speech development
21.    English (English) speech development
22.    English (Fiji) speech development
23.    English (General American) speech development
24.    English (Irish) speech development
25.    English (New Zealand) speech development
26.    English (Scottish) speech development
27.    English (South African) speech development
28.    English + Cantonese speech development
29.    English + French speech development
30.    English + Greek speech development
31.    English + Spanish speech development  
32.    English + Vietnamese speech development
33.    Finnish speech development
34.    Flemish speech development
35.    French (Canadian) speech development
36.    French (France) speech development
37.    French (Swiss) speech development  
38.    German speech development
39.    Greek (Cypriot) speech development
40.    Greek (Standard) speech development
41.    Hebrew (Israeli) speech development  
42.    Hungarian speech development
43.    Icelandic speech development
44.    Irish speech development  
45.    Italian speech development  
46.    Jamaican Creole speech development  
47.    Japanese speech development  
48.    Kurdish speech development
49.    Laki speech development
50.    Maltese speech development  
51.    Mandarin/Putonghua speech development  
52.    Māori speech development
53.    Norwegian speech development  
54.    Persian/Farsi speech development
55.    Polish speech development  
56.    Portuguese (Brazilian) speech development  
57.    Portuguese (European) speech development  
58.    Samoan speech development  
59.    Sesotho speech development
60.    Setswana speech development
61.    Slovak speech development  
62.    Slovenian speech development  
63.    Spanish (Andalusian) speech development  
64.    Spanish (Castilian) speech development  
65.    Spanish (Chilean) speech development  
66.    Spanish (Mexican) speech development  
67.    Spanish (Peruvian) speech development  
68.    Swedish speech development
69.    Tagalog speech development
70.    Tamil speech development
71.    Thai speech development
72.    Tok Pisin speech development
73.    Turkish speech development  
74.    Urdu speech development
75.    Vietnamese speech development  
76.    Walpiri speech development
77.    Welsh speech development  
78.    Xhosa/isiXhosa speech development
79.    Zapotec speech development  
80.    Zulu/isiZulu speech development

Published book chapter: Diagnosing speech sound disorder in bilingual Vietnamese-English-speaking children: Are English-only assessments sufficient?

Congratulations Kate on the publication of this important book chapter from your PhD. 

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

Here is the website for the chapter: https://benjamins.com/catalog/sibil.67.08mar

Two chapters published in Health and Wellbeing in Childhood 4th edition

Jane McCormack and I have just had two chapters published in the fourth edition of Health and Wellbeing in Childhood

• McCormack, J., & McLeod, S. (2024). Classifying health and wellbeing: Applying the International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health to early years learners. In S. Garvis & D. Pendergast (Eds.), Health and wellbeing in childhood (4th ed., pp. 18-32). Cambridge University Press. 
• McCormack, J., & McLeod, S. (2024). Communication development. In S. Garvis & D. Pendergast (Eds.), Health and wellbeing in childhood (4th ed., pp. 123-138). Cambridge University Press. 
  
  
  
  

The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World - getting closer to submission

The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World is an important book - but very time intensive book to edit. There will be ~ 80 chapters in the final version. We have been working very hard:

• 30 chapters are completely finalised and ready for OUP
• 11 chapters are with the authors to answer the copyeditor's queries
• 12 chapters are with the copyeditor
• 19 chapters are with the authors after my editorial review
• the ~8 remaining chapters are undergoing editorial review/author finalisation
  

Children's Speech Sound Disorders - third edition has been published

It is a priviledge to have written in each of the three editions of Caroline Bowen's book: Children's Speech Sound Disorders. It is exciting to see that the third edition has just been published.

Book chapter: SDG18: Communication for all – Including people with a communication disability, children, and people who do not speak dominant languages

The following book chapter was published on 25th March 

McLeod, S., Verdon, S. & Crowe, K. (2023). SDG18: Communication for all – Including people with a communication disability, children, and people who do not speak dominant languages. In J. Servaes & M. J. Yusha’u (Eds.). SDG18 Communication for All, Volume 2: Regional perspectives & special cases. Sustainable Development Goals Series (pp. 175–199). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19459-7_7 

Here is the abstract 

Everyone has the right to communicate; however, not everyone can communicate in the same way. If SDG18 truly stands for “Communication for All”, then we must listen to and advocate for people whose voices are rarely heard despite their right to “freedom of opinion and expression” being articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent conventions and declarations. This chapter focuses on three groups of people whose voices are particularly marginalized: (1) people with communication disabilities, (2) children, and (3) people who do not speak/understand/read/write the dominant language of their community. These three groups make up a large portion of the world’s population but are unheard due to their invisible disability. The intersectionality between these three groups is a particular focus of this chapter leading to a call for multilingual children with communication disability to be supported to take their place as communicators in society, to fulfill their potential as multilingual speakers, and to realize their communication rights.

Writing book chapters

I am busily writing and editing book chatpers this year. Here are a few that I have been working on in 2023 with my students and colleagues:

• Tran, V. H., McLeod, S., Verdon, S., & Margetson, K. (2023, in submission). Vietnamese-Australian families: language competence and home language maintenance. In K. Cruickshank, J. Lo Bianco & M. Wahlin (Ed). Community/ heritage languages schools transforming education: Beyond complementary, more than integration. Taylor and Francis.
• Margetson, K., McLeod, S., & Verdon, S. (2023, in progress). English-only assessments are not sufficient for diagnosis of speech sound disorder: Evidence from four multilingual children. In E. Babatsouli (Ed.). Multilingual acquisition and learning: Towards an eco-systemic view of diversity. John Benjamins Publishing. 
• McLeod, S., & Blake, H. L. (2023, in progress). Australian English speech development. In S. McLeod (Ed.). The Oxford handbook of speech development in languages of the world. Oxford University Press. 
• Washington, K. N., Wright Karem, R., Deutenberg, C., McLeod. S., & Schwartz, C. (2023, in submission). Celebrating Jamaican children’s voices using their drawings: Cross-sectional and longitudinal insights. In L. Mahoney, S. McLeod, A. Salamon, & J. Dwyer (Eds). Early childhood voices in the lives of children, families, and professionals. Springer.
• McLeod. S., Crowe, K. & McCormack, J. (2023, in progress). When are speech sounds learned and why is this important? In L. Mahony, S. McLeod, A. Salamon, & J. Dwyer (Eds). Early childhood voices in the lives of children, families, and professionals. Springer.
  

Book chapter for Portuguese audience

"Linguística clínica: Modelos, avaliação e intervenção" edited by Maria João Freitas, Marisa Lousada, Dina Caetano Alves, has just been published. 

We were very honoured to be invited to write the first chapter: 

McLeod, S., Verdon, S., & McGill, N. (2022). Assessment and intervention for children with speech sound disorders. In M. J. Freitas, M. Lousada, & D. C. Alves (Eds.), Linguística clínica: Modelos, avaliação e intervenção (pp. 3-22). Language Science Press. https://doi.org/10.5281.zenodo.7233213

The chapter is available via Google books: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=LRGpEAAAQBAJ&newbks=0&printsec=frontcover&pg=PA3&hl=en&source=newbks_fb&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Portuguese book chapter has just been published

Our latest book chapter has just been published in the following book that is written in Portuguese (except for our chapter).

Freitas, M. J., M. Lousada & D. Caetano Alves (2022) Linguística Clínica: Modelos, Avaliação e Intervenção. Berlim, Language Science Press (https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/358).

All chapters are available at the link above. Here is our chapter's details

McLeod, S., Verdon, S., & McGill, N. (2022). Assessment and intervention for children with speech sound disorders. In M. J. Freitas, M. Lousada & D. Alves (Eds.) Liguística clínica: Modelos, avaliação e intervenção [Clinical linguistics: Models, assessment and intervention] (pp. 3-22). Language Science Press.

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.

Page proofs about children's communication rights in ECEC

I really enjoy working on page proofs. They usually appear a number of years after a project begins. Today we finalised page proofs for this chapter that was part of Anna Cronin's PhD research: 

Cronin, A., McLeod, S., & Wren, Y. (2020, accepted August). Communication rights of young children in early childhood education and care. In F. Press & S. Cheeseman (Eds.). (Re)conceptualising children’s rights in infant-toddler early childhood care and education: Transnational conversations. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. 

Book series: Policy and Pedagogy with Under-three Year Olds: Cross-disciplinary Insights and Innovations, Vol. 4,

New books for 2022

Today I recieved my copy of the ninth edition of Speech Sound Disorders in Children: Articulation and Phonological Disorders edited by John Bernthal, Nicolas Bankson and Peter Flipen Jnr. I wrote chapter 3 titled "Speech sound acquisition" (pp. 57-108). It was bittersweet, because while I wrote chapter 3, I was in regular contact with John Bernthal, and since that time John has passed away. It is nice to hold his legacy in my hand. It is rare for a book in our profession to make it to the ninth edition.

Today I also received an email from Dee Fish and Amy Meredith who wrote:

Dee and I just submitted our draft to Plural for the 3rd edition of "Here's How to Treat Childhood Apraxia of Speech." ... Throughout this process, we have read your research and reached out to many of you for additional information. This has been a humbling and rewarding process. ... You have all done amazing work for the benefit of these children we all care so deeply about.

Collaborations with Dr. Karla Washington

I met with Dr. Karla Washington today. We celebrated her recent ASHA Fellow award.

We are currently working on a few book chapters together. 

1. a chapter about Jamaican children's drawings of talking in a Springer book on children's voices
2. a chapter on Jamaican creole speech development for the Oxford University Press book I am editing.
   

Reviewers' feedback: Communication rights moderated through hierarchies of disability and childhood

We have just received reviews of our chapter titled "Communication rights moderated through hierarchies of disability and childhood" which we submitted in May to "Hierarchies of Disability Human Rights" edited by Stephen Meyers, Megan McCloskey and Gabor Petri for the Interdisciplinary Disability Studies Book Series to be published by Routledge Press, NY. 

While there were a few minor recommended changes we were thrilled with their overall summaries of our chapter: 

Reviewer 1: "This is an important and well-written chapter. It clearly established the international legal framework for the right to education, describes barriers to that right, and provides a case study on children with disabilities’ right to education in Australia..." 

Reviewer 2: "This is a well-written chapter that readers will find fascinating. Communication rights seem to be somewhat hidden in disability human rights discussion, therefore this chapter will be a valuable addition to our edited volume..."

Jess McLeod and Sharynne

Book chapter in press "Supporting the communication of underserved children in Viet Nam"

The following book chapter was just accepted for publication:

Supporting the communication of underserved children in Viet Nam 

Ben Phạm, Sharynne McLeod, Sarah Verdon, Kate Margetson, and Van H. Tran 

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a case study of work undertaken in Viet Nam to support underserved children with communication disabilities. This chapter focusses on collaborations between Viet Nam, Australia, and other countries to support children with communication disorders and to nurture the developing speech and language therapy profession in Viet Nam. The chapter also profiles research and initiatives that have focussed on understanding children’s speech and language acquisition to develop culturally and linguistically appropriate assessments and resources to support intervention. Childhood communication disorders include difficulties with speech, language, hearing, communication and/or literacy.

The title of the book is: Improving Care for Marginalized and Underserved Populations with Communication Disorders and the International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders (IALP) is currently finalising the publisher.