Early childhood education and care: Productivity Commission Report

The Early childhood education and care: Productivity Commission Report has been tabled https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/childhood/report

From the website:

"This report outlines what a universal ECEC system would look like, and the significant reforms necessary to achieve it. These reforms tackle issues that affect ECEC availability, inclusion, affordability, quality and equity. The report's recommendations aim to remove barriers to ECEC access and support better outcomes for children and families." 

The review included consultation with children:

• Children’s Perspectives of Early Childhood Education and Care (PDF 3.8 MB)
• Making the Invisible Visible: Consulting with Children (PDF 5.0 MB)

I am so glad that Jane Delaney was able to represent speech pathologists' perspectives at the April 2024 Joint Roundtable with Academy of Social Sciences (volume 3, p. 20) since I was overseas at the time. Her input enhanced the submission made by Speech Pathology Australia. https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/childhood/report/childhood-volume3-appendices.pdf

"What's got us talking" - University of Technology Sydney podcast

Today I was interviewed by Laura Carolina Corrigan for the University of Technology Sydney podcast called "What's got us talking". She was interested in learning more about The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World and the work of our team regarding multilingual children's speech. Here are some links to our research that I shared:

• Multilingual Children’s Speech YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRXcSAl_dA7arRMrE0qdxLuzGChY1LgY2
• Multilingual Children’s Speech website: https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech
• Key paper: McLeod, S., & Crowe, K. (2018). Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 27(4), 1546–1571. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100
• Free posters: https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-acquisition/learning-english-consonants

ECIR's policy impact is in SCOPUS

ECIR's policy impact is in SCOPUS!

https://www.scival.com/impact/policy/summary?uri=Customer/201004/ResearcherGroup/1141309

 

Translating and sharing research - videos and posters

Today I met with A/Prof Belinda Cash for our monthly mentoring meeting. One of the topics we discussed was how important it is to translate our Q1 journal articles to user-friendly formats (videos, posters, resources etc.).

Here are some examples of ways that we have translated our research into user-friendly formats

1. VIDEO "The Lifelong Effects Of Speaking Multiple Languages" Multilingualism is a superpower! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBrXmRW7lwg

Based on:

Blake, H. L., McLeod, S., Verdon, S., & Fuller, G. (2018). The relationship between spoken English proficiency and participation in higher education, employment and income from two Australian censuses. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 20(2), 202–215. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2016.1229031 

McLeod, S., & Crowe, K. (2018). Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 27(4), 1546–1571. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100

2.  RESOURCES "VietSpeech SuperSpeech - Maintaining home languages" https://www.csu.edu.au/research/vietspeech/info

Based on: 

McLeod, S., Verdon, S., Tran, V. H., Margetson, K., & Wang, C. (2022). SuperSpeech: Multilingual speech and language maintenance intervention for Vietnamese-Australian children and families via telepractice. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 53(3), 675-697. https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_LSHSS-21-00146

3.  POSTERS "Learning English consonants"https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-acquisition

Based on:

McLeod, S., & Crowe, K. (2018). Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 27(4), 1546–1571. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100

Crowe, K., & McLeod, S. (2020). Children's English consonant acquisition in the United States: A review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 29(4), 2155–2169. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_AJSLP-19-00168

4. VIDEO "ON-TRAC - transitioning to residential aged care" https://youtu.be/DKPSTt4ihyk

Based on: 

Fealy, S., McLaren, S., Nott, M., Seaman, C.E., Cash, B., & Rose, L. (2024). Psychological interventions designed to reduce relocation stress for older people transitioning into permanent residential aged care: A systematic scoping review. Aging and Mental Health. https://doi.org/10.1080/13607863.2024.2340731

(Created by Gareth Smart - CSU digital media technologist - DLT)

Impact of our research with siblings

Some time ago we undertook research with siblings of children with disabilities, including communication disabilities:

Barr, J., & McLeod, S. (2010). They never see how hard it is to be me: Siblings' observations of strangers, peers and family. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 12(2), 162–171. https://doi.org/10.3109/17549500903434133

Our paper has just been cited here:

Strohm, K. (2024). Recommendations of the Disability Royal Commission fail to recognise families, siblings in particular, as natural lifelong supports for people with intellectual disabilities. Research and Practice in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/23297018.2024.2364340

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

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

 

ECV2024 registrations have begun - 47 from 8 countries already!

This month we launched registration for the Early Childhood Voices Conference 2024 (ECV2024). In less than two weeks we have had 47 registrations from Fiji, Nigeria, Ireland, Iceland, Hungary, Bangladesh, UK, and Australia. Our international reach has begun.

Here is our website: https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/early-childhood-voices-conference-2024/

Early Childhood Voices Conference (ECV2024). Free, online 25-28 November 2024. Interdisciplinary, international, social justice. Please register and submit an abstract.

• Registration: https://csu.edu.au/ecv2024 
• Abstract submission closes 29th July 2024: https://www.cvent.com/c/abstracts/f80b7916-9c71-4cfd-8141-c68bcff659d9 
• Children’s submission of a drawing/creation of playing (see attached poster): https://csu.edu.au/ecv2024-children

 

Patient and public involvement (PPI)

I am pleased to note that "patient and public involvement (PPI)" is mentioned frequently in the UK. It seems to be the acronym that has grown from the phrase that I heard frequently during my last visit to the UK: "nothing about us without us". 

Here is an example of PPI from the Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC) in the NHS: https://www.england.nhs.uk/aac/what-we-do/patient-and-public-involvement/

"Patient and public involvement is important to the work of the Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC). We work with people and communities to ensure that the research priorities and innovations we support are developed in collaboration with people with lived experience of a particular service or health condition. We work with patients, people who access services, carers, charities, community groups and others to bring diverse perspectives into our work."

Here is the NHS PPI strategy: https://www.england.nhs.uk/aac/publication/accelerated-access-collaborative-patient-and-public-involvement-strategy/

"Working with our patient partners and stakeholders, we have developed The patient and public involvement strategy 2021-2026. This strategy sets out six aims:

1. Ensure that a diverse range of patients and the public, especially people with lived experience, are involved in influencing the direction and delivery of our work programmes.

2. Proactively address equality and inclusion in our work.

3. Work collaboratively across the Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC) partnership and wider system partners to embed a culture of patient involvement across AAC programmes.

4. Support patients and public partners to have a meaningful and positive experience while working with us.

5. Understand our impact and outcomes.

6. Communicate our impact."

   I have learned from Prof Yvonne Wren about how they have PPI groups (e.g., YPAG - Young People's Advisory Group) who are consulted at various times during their research. For example, their team included a range of stakeholders to co-design in their research, then the PPI groups were consulted to provide feedback before being tested.  

   PPI groups can be established outside of the data collection process. PPI discussions are not included as research data unless ethics approval has been gained and signed consent has been received.
   

    Here are some associated terms: "co-design", "co-create", "collaboration", "listening to children's voices".

ScholarGPS Highly Ranked Scholars

I just received the following email:

ScholarGPS celebrates Highly Ranked Scholars™ for their exceptional performance in various Fields, Disciplines, and Specialties. Your prolific publication record, the high impact of your work, and the outstanding quality of your scholarly contributions have placed you in the top 0.05% of all scholars worldwide. View your scholar profile and rankings 

Listed below is a summary of the areas (and your ranking in those areas) in which you have been awarded Highly Ranked Scholar status based on your accomplishments over the totality of your career (lifetime) and over the prior five years: 

• Highly Ranked Scholar - Lifetime #2 Speech-language pathology 
• Highly Ranked Scholar - Prior 5 Years #1 Speech-language pathology

I was thrilled to see that three of the five highly ranked scholars (lifetime) are Australian: Mark Onslow and Linda Worrall.

 

An eloquent description of the impact of our work

I recently came upon this eloquent description of the impact our work we have presented to the UN: 

"By virtue of linking SLT [speech and language therapy] with Human Rights and the UN 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development, McLeod and colleagues fundamentally decentred the traditional medical model. Instead, they harnessed frameworks that specifically acknowledge and seek to address issues of injustice and inequalities, hence affording greater alignment with the current reframing of the profession under social justice movements" (Gréaux, 2024)

McLeod, S. (2018). Communication rights: Fundamental human rights for all. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 20(1), 3–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2018.1428687 

McLeod, S., & Marshall, J. (2023). Communication for all and the Sustainable Development Goals. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 25(1), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2022.2160494

Gréaux, M. (2024). Speech and language therapy workforce diversity: Three studies under an increasing transformative research framework. Unpublished doctoral thesis. University of Cambridge.

Impact case study workshop with ECIR

Today we had our second impact case study workshop with Dale Curran from the Research Office. She mentioned that people request testimonials from people as evidence of impact (previously I have only used unsolicited emails). Here are some resources she shared:

• Link to the blog with guidance on testimonials from London School of Economics https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2018/06/08/guidance-on-testimonials-and-statements-to-corroborate-impact/ 
• Knowledge Exchange and Impact https://info.lse.ac.uk/staff/services/knowledge-exchange-and-impact

Impact - Our research on speech acquisition incorporated into state guidance within the USA

Our research on children's speech acquisition(Crowe & McLeod, 2020; Ireland et al., 2020; McLeod & Crowe, 2018) has been incorporated in state guidance within the USA: 

• Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Children’s Articulation and Speech Sound Development https://dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/sped/pdf/sl-articulation-infographic.pdf 
• Virginia Department of Education https://www.doe.virginia.gov/programs-services/special-education/specific-disabilities/speech-language-impairment

• 
  

Crowe, K., & McLeod, S. (2020). Children's English consonant acquisition in the United States: A review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 29(4), 2155–2169. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_AJSLP-19-00168 

Ireland, M., McLeod, S., Farquharson, K., & Crowe, K. (2020). Evaluating children in U.S. public schools with speech sound disorders: Considering federal and state laws, guidance, and research. Topics in Language Disorders, 40(4), 326–340. https://doi.org/10.1097/tld.0000000000000226 

McLeod, S., & Crowe, K. (2018). Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 27(4), 1546–1571. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100

ECIR Report for School of Education School Board Meeting

Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research (ECIR) Sturt Scheme 

Presented by Prof Sharynne McLeod, Co-lead ECIR 

• https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains 
• ECIR presents a transformative research program promoting social justice for children, families and practitioners within early childhood. 
• ECIR’s research emphasises enhancing children’s access to, participation in and outcomes from equitable, quality early childhood programs and services, workforce sustainability, children’s rights, communication rights, and transformation of the social, policy and organisational conditions that enable social justice.

We build capacity for engaging in transformative research within our group and with other researchers.

• https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/researchers-and-publications/ 
• • We provide an internship model of research capacity building where people actively contribute to research with the support of mentors. Research activities include: organising conferences, editing books, writing book chapters, running research projects, analysing data, writing journal articles, and supporting members to apply for promotion and grants. 
• • Contact us (ecir@csu.edu.au) if you would like to become a member. We welcome staff and research students from Charles Sturt University. 
• • ECIR members conduct transformational international research (currently 1234 research outputs): https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/en/organisations/early-childhood-interdisciplinary-research-group

CSU Research Excellence Award Winners 

• Research Winners: Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research Group (ECIR) 
• Recognises and celebrates outstanding contributions of individuals and teams who engage in research excellence that contributes to the success of Charles Sturt and drives regional outcomes with global impact. 
• What the nomination was for: This nomination is for excellence in research capacity building. ECIR provides an internship model where early career researchers are well supported by more experienced researchers in a wide range of research activities including organising conferences, editing books, writing book chapters, running research projects, analysing data, writing journal articles, and applying for promotion and grants. Members work collaboratively on projects such as the hosting of the Early Childhood Voices Conference (ECV2022), recent submission of an edited book arising from ECV2020 presentations, and analysis of children’s drawings from across the globe. These joint projects develop knowledge, skills and experience for members to pursue their own research interests.

BOOK Early Childhood Voices (Springer)

• Mahony, L., McLeod, S., Salamon, A., Dwyer, J. (Eds.) (in press). Early childhood voices: Children, families, professionals. Springer. https://link.springer.com/book/9783031564833 
• Following on from the internationally successful Early Childhood Voices Conferences in 2020 and 2022 (ECV2020 and ECV2022) members of ECIR have co-edited and co-authored a book to be published by Springer in 2024 that brings together professionals across multiple disciplines from 17 countries. 
• Here are some of the reviews: "Voice has been explored in early childhood before, but the focus of this book from a social justice perspective contextualizes voice work in a powerful way." "The interdisciplinary nature of the book is to be commended!" "The images of children and drawings by children bring the book to life and are a wonderful addition." "The book also tackles head on the diversity of experience and culture. It moves away from a privileged perspective on voice work and includes many chapters on complexity and challenges in life"

United Nations Human Rights 75 Youth Declaration

• Another exciting outcome from ECV2022 was an ECIR team response to the United Nations’ call for views of youth-led and youth-focused organizations and institutions on the future of human rights for the development of the Human Rights 75 Youth Declaration. Their ECIR group submission can be accessed on the United Nations’ website here: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/issues/youth/hr75/submissions/subm-views-youth-led-cso-early-childhood-interdisciplinary-resear.pdf 

Early Childhood Voices Conference (ECV2024) 

• 25-28 November 2024 
• Call for abstracts opens in April 2024 
• Opportunities for CSU staff and research students to submit abstracts, be on conference committee, attend the conference, encourage children to participate. 
• “Children draw/create playing” will be one way children’s voices are profiled. 
• See ECV2022 https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/early-childhood-voices-conference-2022/ The conference attracted 1,956 registrations from 72 countries as well as 6 keynote presentations and 95 oral presentations from 25 countries. During the week of the conference there were 6,431 page views from 1,358 users. In addition, there were over 3,517 YouTube views of the presentations and 243 hours of viewing. • ECV2022 was included in CSU's 2022 Sustainable Development Goals report 
• ECV2024 website is coming soon.

The Treehouse 

• UNDER DEVELOPMENT. Virtual and physical child-focussed space for research, teaching and the community. 
• Building 1451 on Bathurst campus.

Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research Sturt Scheme Research Impact

What do you get when you create a Charles Sturt research group with an agreed focus to make the world better for children? The answer is a lot of research impact. The Sturt Scheme funded Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research (ECIR) group is a great example of how CSU supports active and quality interdisciplinary collaboration between new and experienced researchers to foster research excellence. 

• ECIR https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/ 

• ECIR Research Outputs https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/en/organisations/early-childhood-interdisciplinary-research-group 

Children Draw Talking: 

ECIR members have collected 200 children’s drawings from over 20 countries as part of the Early Childhood Voices Conference 2022 (ECV2022) conference as a springboard for advocacy and research output. Together 16 members of the group analysed the 200 drawings using frameworks from education, speech pathology and linguistics. The project team recently shared their findings at a 1-hr symposium presented at the 2024 Australasian Journal of Early Childhood (AJEC) conference in February. The presentation stimulated excellent discussion amongst participants. Currently, journal articles reporting on the drawing analysis protocol and analyses outcomes are underway and have submitted a manuscript to a Q1 journal. 

• Gallery 1: The World https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/early-childhood-voices-conference-2022/children-draw-talking-gallery-1-the-world/ 

• Gallery 2: Indonesia https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/early-childhood-voices-conference-2022/children-draw-talking-gallery-2-indonesia/ 

• Gallery 3: Australia https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/early-childhood-voices-conference-2022/children-draw-talking-gallery-3-australia/ 

• Gallery 4: Australia https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/early-childhood-voices-conference-2022/children-draw-talking-gallery-4-australia/ 

United Nations Human Rights 75 Youth Declaration: 

Another exciting outcome from ECV2022 was an ECIR team response to the United Nations’ call for views of youth-led and youth-focused organizations and institutions on the future of human rights for the development of the Human Rights 75 Youth Declaration.. Their ECIR group submission can be accessed on the United Nations’ website here: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/issues/youth/hr75/submissions/subm-views-youth-led-cso-early-childhood-interdisciplinary-resear.pdf 

Early Childhood Voices (Springer): 

Following on from the internationally successful Early Childhood Voices Conferences in 2020 and 2022 (ECV2020 and ECV2022) members of ECIR have co-edited and co-authored a book to be published by Springer in 2024 that brings together professionals across multiple disciplines from 17 countries. 

Mahony, L., McLeod, S., Salamon, A., Dwyer, J. (Eds.) (in press). Early childhood voices: Children, families, professionals. Springer. https://link.springer.com/book/9783031564833 

Here are some of the reviews: "Voice has been explored in early childhood before, but the focus of this book from a social justice perspective contextualizes voice work in a powerful way." "The interdisciplinary nature of the book is to be commended!" "The images of children and drawings by children bring the book to life and are a wonderful addition." "The book also tackles head on the diversity of experience and culture. It moves away from a privileged perspective on voice work and includes many chapters on complexity and challenges in life" 

Early Childhood Voices Conference 2024 (ECV2024): 

Looking ahead, the ECIR group have begun planning the Early Childhood Voices Conference 2024 (ECV2024), which will run from 25-28 November 2024. So start thinking about presenting your research with children. Abstract submissions are open from 22 April 2024 - 29 July 2024. The ECIR team will once again look to collect children’s views – this year the focus will be on how children experience play and how they see play as essential to creating a better world. 

Apply to join ECIR: If advocating for the rights of children drives your research activities consider sending an email Expression of Interest and your CV explaining why you would be a good addition to the ECIR group to ECIR@csu.edu.au. Charles Sturt University staff and students are welcome to apply.

Impact - Intelligibility in Context Scale

The Intelligibility in Context Scale has been used as an outcome measure for the International Consortium of Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM) for patients with a cleft lip and/or palate. 

Here is their latest publication: 

Ombashi, S., Kurniawan, M. S., Allori, A., Sharif-Askary, B., Rogers-Vizena, C., Koudstaal, M., Franken, M.-C., Molen, A. B. M. v. d., Mathijssen, I., Klassen, A., & Versnel, S. L. (2023). What is the optimal assessment of speech? A multicentre, international evaluation of speech assessment in 2500 patients with a cleft. BMJ Open, 13(12), e071571. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2023-071571

The analysis of ICS data is really interesting:

• "Moderate correlations were found between PCC and ICS in patients with CP (r=0.64) and in patients with CL(A)P (r=0.5). VPC and ICS had a (negative) weak correlation in patients with CP (r=−0.49) and CL(A)P (r=−0.43)." (p. 4) 
• "All correlations between PROMs were moderate, except for the strong correlation of the SFunction with both the SDistress and the ICS in patients with a CP. The fact that the correlation between the SFunction and SDistress is stronger in patients with CP than in patients with CL(A)P suggests that the visibly different appearance in patients with CL(A)P plays a significant role in SDistress as well; in a social context, looking differently may cause additional or more distress besides having speech problems. This is supported by our finding that the ICS correlated moderately with SFunction, but weakly with SDistress in the CL(A)P group. Parent- reported speech intelligibility correlated higher to children’s self report of their speech function than it did to the speech distress the children themselves experience. In the latter, distress about appearance could be included. This finding suggests that the ICS can give an indication of ‘patient- reported’ SFunction in young children who cannot complete a PROM themselves yet (7 years and younger)." (p. 5)
• "A ceiling effect in ICS outcomes of patients with CP, without clear differences between average scores in patients with CP and CL(A)P, suggests that the group with CP contains a diverse population and severity of the speech problems vary widely. Furthermore, since ICS is not specifically developed for a population with CP±L, it is debatable whether this tool captures the information necessary to point out all relevant speech problems in the patient group.However, exclusion of ICS could mean that a large part of the speech problems in the population with CP would remain undetected. Assessment at 5 and 12 years in patients with both cleft types, which is the current timing in the ICHOM Standard Set, appears therefore appropriate despite the ceiling effect." (pp. 7-8)

Executive Board Meeting for International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology

Tonight was the Executive Board Meeting for International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology

• Editors: Elizabeth Cardell and Natalie Munro
• Executive Board Members: Sharynne McLeod, Lyndsey Nickels, Mark Onslow, Liz Ward, Suze Leitão, Kirrie Ballard, Anne Whitworth,  Chris Code (UK), Edwin Yiu (HK)  

IJSLP continues to publish high quality impactful papers and our conversations were broad-ranging and included a number of innovations.

A few items on the agenda that related to our team:

• Our special issue about Communication, Swallowing and the Sustainable Development Goals has had 40,703 downloads and a mean citation rate of 2.28
• Most read article in the last year #2: Communication for all and the Sustainable Development Goals (3686 downloads)
•  Top Altmetric score in the last year #1: Communication rights: Fundamental human rights for all (196)
• Top cited article in the last year #2: “Many wasted months”: Stakeholders’ perspectives about waiting for speech-language pathology services
• Top cited article in the last year #6: Waiting for speech-language pathology services: A randomised controlled trial comparing therapy, advice and device
  

ASHA Convention Changemaker Session: One of 117 selected from 3400+ submissions

What an honour for three people from CSU to have received this accolade (Kathryn Crowe, Sharynne McLeod, Kate Margetson). 

Surprise, and congratulations! We are delighted to inform you that your 2023 ASHA Convention presentation titled, "Methods for Accurate Differential Diagnosis of Speech Sound Disorder in Multilingual Children", has been designated as an ASHA Convention Changemaker Session. This special designation was developed specifically for the 2023 ASHA Convention, in keeping with our theme of Igniting Innovation, and specifically recognizes presentations that are exceptional and promote or demonstrate innovation in one the following ways: • Potential to make an important or significant positive change at the patient, systemic, or discipline level. • Strong evidence that the work being presented has had a significant impact, or has the potential to provoke important change, at the individual, systemic, or discipline level. • Transformative research or clinical work that has dramatically changed the practices or future research (e.g., Contributes to new best practices). There were many sessions that embraced the theme and were quite strong, highlighting great examples of innovation in practice. Your submission, however, is one of just 117 specifically selected out of more than 3400 submissions. Each Topic Committee had the choice of recommending only three top-rated sessions that merited this special Changemaker recognition, across any session format, any member or affiliation type, and across both submission categories of professional education and research. Your presentation was assessed as exceptional and worthy of this special recognition.

ASHA Convention Changemaker Sessions will be highlighted in the Program Planner/Mobile App, the ASHA Convention Virtual Extra, and/or in the printed Pocket Planner. Additionally, we will create a special recognition certificate that will be emailed to you in September.

Please highlight this achievement on your CV by listing it under awards as a selected Changemaker Session, 2023 ASHA Convention. Should you have any questions, please email papers@asha.org. Congratulations again, thank you for your work that challenges us, inspires us, and demonstrates the breadth and depth of innovation in our professions. 

Sincerely, Kelly Farquharson 2023 ASHA Convention Co-Chair for Speech-Language Pathology

Jennifer Simpson 2023 ASHA Convention Co-Chair for Audiology

Changemaker session presentation details: 

• Topic Area: Speech Sound Disorders in Children with Normal Hearing 
• Title: Methods for Accurate Differential Diagnosis of Speech Sound Disorder in Multilingual Children 
• Session Format: 1-Hour Seminar (In-Person) 
• Author(s): Karla Washington, Kathryn Crowe, Sharynne McLeod, Kate Margetson, Leslie Kokotek, Pauline van der Straten Waillet, Thora Masdottir, Marc Volhardt 
• Session Code: 1972 
• Day: Saturday, November 18, 2023 
• Time: 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM 

ASHA Special Collection: Developmental Milestones

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association has just launched a new developmental milestones collection. https://www.asha.org/public/developmental-milestones/communication-milestones/

It is pleasing to see that the data they have used to describe children's speech development (https://pubs.asha.org/special-collections/developmental-milestones) is from our paper:

Crowe, K., & McLeod, S. (2020). Children's English consonant acquisition in the United States: A review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 29(4), 2155–2169. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_AJSLP-19-00168

Charles Sturt University Research Futures video interviews

I was honoured to be interviewed for Research Futures. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joK0h40Z6bY

Research Futures is a series of video interviews with Charles Sturt's Vice-Chancellor, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) and senior academics by Virginia Haussegger AM, an award-winning television journalist, writer and commentator. Research is, and will always be, vital to Charles Sturt's social purpose - to generate world-class applied research to help foster prosperous communities across New South Wales. Charles Sturt aims to be the leading regional university known for solving real-world problems and enhancing the quality of life of regional Australians. The Research Futures Showcase is a tightly woven showcase of vignettes taken from interviews conducted by Virginia where researchers discuss their big research ideas, how they challenge orthodoxy and what research outcomes will or have been achieved. Research Futures shows the breadth and importance of research being conducted at Charles Sturt.

• Professor Renée Leon, Vice-Chancellor // https://youtu.be/pOwCuUrkbsY 
• Professor Mark Evans, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) // https://youtu.be/Hg899ZiP8Yo 
• Professor Sharynne McLeod // https://youtu.be/KPt4IU3zLE0 
• Professor Alan Cooper // https://youtu.be/44DYFiG10IY 
• Professor Allen Ross // https://youtu.be/uq0NKkmevRM 
• Professor Ganna Pogrebna // https://youtu.be/igFsPjKrZjE 
• Professor Jane Quinn // https://youtu.be/MvtzBvaZkGk 
• Professor Lee Baumgartner // https://youtu.be/MwPi0z2mElE 
• Professor Leslie Weston // https://youtu.be/_8Hb2lIAF74
• Nick Pagett // https://youtu.be/TsQkxcR29-I
• Professor Sarah O’Shea // https://youtu.be/-atQqM-RWqs
• Professor Shokoofeh Shamsi // https://youtu.be/IlWGlSS9p9I