Mentoring conversations

 I enjoy my mentoring conversations. Today Prof Jillian Marsh and I discussed many interesting issues.

CVC affilates and adjuncts contribute papers to CLTT special issue

Listening to Children with Diverse Communication Abilities

Child Language Teaching and Therapy Special Issue (2026, volume 42) - Q1 journal

Guest editors: Sharynne McLeod and Holly McAlister*, Children’s Voices Centre, Charles Sturt University, Australia
CLTT Editors: Judy Clegg and Victoria Joffe

https://journals.sagepub.com/home/clt 

The entire special issue contains 17 papers written by people from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, UK

Here is my 2-minute video summary of the special issue:  https://charlessturt.zoom.us/rec/share/M6k58N7ZaAZsqNcKTpefR9bRT62DNI-tKN-5ov_9PT6h-6bh4j1K79Knb6d1Y7IO.WKRpGEL_LBPtpYv7
View in Zoom

It has been great to mentor and include so many CVC staff/affiliates/adjuncts/HDR students in the special issue:

• 6 CVC papers
• 2 CVC editors
• 19 CVC authors
• 8 CVC peer reviewers

1. Cologon, K. (2026). From space and voice to audience and influence: Methodological approaches to inclusive co-research with young children. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 42, https://doi.org/10.1177/02656590261470993
2. Deehan, H., McLeod, S. & Harrison, L. J. (2026). “Oh! I forgot the voice”: Comparing drawings of talking by children with and without speech sound disorder. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 42, https://doi.org/10.1177/02656590261433348
3. Gregoric, C., McLeod, S., Hopf, S. C., Downey, B., Rahman, A., Sikder, S., Zischke, C., Tran, V. H., Murray, E., McAlister, H., Ivory, N., Delli-Pizzi, L., Elwick, S., Dealtry, L., Davies, J. (2026). Advancing the Sustainable Development Goals by listening to children’s voices across the globe. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 42, https://doi.org/10.1177/02656590251406102
4. McAlister, H., McLeod, S., & Hopf, S. C. (2026). Ladders, trees and matrixes: Child-focused participatory action research frameworks for children with diverse communication abilities. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 42, https://doi.org/10.1177/02656590261455298
5. McCormack, J., Cronin, A., McLeod, S., Ireland, M., Wang, C., & Tiong, C. (2026). Children’s drawings of intervention for childhood apraxia of speech: Place, people, activity, and emotion. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 42, https://doi.org/10.1177/02656590251375340
6. McLeod, S. (2026). Large listening ears are not enough: How can we mature in our practices to listen to children? Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 42, https://doi.org/10.1177/02656590261477289

*bolded text = CVC affiliate/adjunct/HDR student

 

Research mentoring @CSU

I have informally and formally mentored many people. 

Over the past few years CSU has used Conscia as the platform

• CSU mentoring: https://staff.csu.edu.au/researchers/skill-development/mentoring
• Conscia: https://mentoring.csu.edu.au/p/p13  
• Value of mentoring: https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/blog/mentoring-support/academic-mentoring-for-researchers/

This year I am formally mentoring Prof Jillian Marsh. 

Mentoring Prof Jillian Marsh

Over the next six months I have the honour of mentoring Professor Jillian Marsh from the School of Indigenous Australian Studies. Most of our meetings will be online as she is based in Albury; however, next month she will be visiting Bathurst.

Jillian identifies as an Adnyamathanha Yuraartu [Aboriginal woman from the northern Flinders Ranges region of South Australia] and her language is Yura Ngawarla. She has expertise in language and linguistics, archeology and the environment.

 

Congratulations to my colleagues who have just been promoted

Huge congratulations to my colleagues who have just been promoted. They do amazing work - and I'm so glad it has been acknowledged.

• Professor Jane McCormack
• Associate Professor Suzanne Hopf
• Senior lecturer Lucia Wuersch

It was a pleasure to mentor them on this journey. Hooray!

 

 

Collaborations with ACU

A/Prof Jane McCormack and I meet on a semi-regular basis to share and collaborate between Australian Catholic University and Charles Sturt University. We have such a rich and long-term partnership.

 

Congratulations Lucia

It has been a privilege to mentor and support Dr Lucia Wursch in the submission of her grant to the Australian Research Council which was submitted yesterday. We had a chance to celebrate at the Vice Chancellor's morning tea this morning. Congratulations Lucia and best wishes for a successful outcome.

Editing a new book

Our editorial team met again today to discuss the publishers' response to our submission. We have a good plan.

RED Award for Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research Group

The  Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research Group won the CSU RED Award for Research. We received the following email:

Good morning,
 
You are receiving this email because you have a team member who has been awarded a 2024 Charles Sturt Excellence Award.
 
The 2024 Charles Sturt Excellence Awards received 94 nominations across our four strategic categories.  The quality of the nominations was high in 2024 and we would like to congratulate not only our winners, but everyone who played a role in the Awards.
 
Log in to RED to see an overview of our winners here: Introducing RED | RED

Kind regards,

The RED Team
Recognising Excellence Daily
Division of People and Culture

Here is the award information

What is the nomination for:
The Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research Group (ECIR) is an inspiring productive research group with global impact. ECIR collaboratively builds research capacity, profile and track record of ~50 early-mid career researchers and higher degree research (HDR) students by providing research mentoring and opportunities via an internship model using co-design and knowledge creation. ECIR increases research capacity for engaging in transformative research regionally, nationally, and internationally through interdisciplinary projects, such as the Children Draw Talking project presented at four 2024 conferences, including the International Conference on Sustainable Development (New York). The bi-annual Early Childhood Voices Conferences (to be held in November 2024) already has 620 registrations from 45 countries and 150 peer-reviewed presentations. ECIR supports members to write grants and publications, present at conferences, apply for promotion and publish from their PhDs. By engaging with ECIR members and activities, early career researchers have competitive CVs ready to apply for promotion and grants.

Why is this Excellence Award worthy?
ECIR has demonstrated sustained excellence in impactful research and support for researchers and HDR students during the Sturt Scheme funding period (2021-2024). ECIR members edited and co-authored 12/18 chapters in the book “Early Childhood Voices: Children, Families, Professionals” published by Springer in 2024 (269 pages). Additional achievements over the past 12 months (to Sept 2024) include books (6 published/in press + 1 proposal), book chapters (19 published/in press), journal articles (28 published/accepted), keynotes/public lectures (10), conference papers (42 presented/accepted), editorials (3), and media (3). During 2024, 2 ECIR members completed their PhD and ECIR members supervised 33 HDR students. Achievements over the past 3 years were recognised in a 2024 CRO impact case study demonstrating impact in policy and practice nationally and internationally, including at the World Health Organization

 

There were four winners in the research category

1. Groundbreaking research in AI and digital health - Dr Mohammad Ali Moni - 

2. Developing and sustaining opportunities for growth in data-science and cyber-security research - Azizur Rahman, Anna Shillabeer, Ashad Kabir, Manoranjan Paul, Philip Charlton, Zahid Islam, Xiaodi Huang, Rafiqul Islam, Michael Bewong, Muhammad Arif Khan, Lihong Zheng, Yeslam Al-Saggaf, Sabih Rehman, Jan Li, Mostafa Dahshan, Tanmoy Debnath, Quazi Mamun, Oliver Burmeister, Terry Bossomaier, Dmitry Demskoy, David Tien, Irfan Altas, Maumita Bhattacharya, Jason Howarth -

3. The Research Productivity Index Project- Samantha Phegan, Josh Kent, Deepa Narayanan, Karen Sinclair, Katie Dunn, John Burns, Helen Stephens, Veera Gogineni, Boram Kwon, Dale Curran, Rory Hock, Emmaline Lear, Lynne Creasy, Latha Bheemaneni, Amanda Shepherd, Samantha Phegan, Josh Kent, Deepa Narayanan, Karen Sinclair, Katie Dunn, John Burns, Helen Stephens, Veera Gogineni, Shyam Mohan, Ben Speirs, Andrew Paul, Simon Eriksson, Jason White, Paul Bristow, Darren Browne -

4. The Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research Group - Sharynne McLeod, Suzanne C. Hopf, Sarah Verdon, Elizabeth (Libbey) Murray, Julian Grant, Carolyn Gregoric, Josephine Ohenewa Bampoe, Sarah Bartlett, Helen L. Blake, Kate Crowe, Jessamy Davies, Lysa Dealtry, Cheree Dean, Laura Delli-Pizzi, Belinda Downey, Tina Du, Jenny Dwyer, Sheena Elwick, Belinda Friezer, Leanne Gibbs, Kasey Hillyer, Laura Hoffman, Carmen Huser, Marie Ireland, Nicola Ivory, Janine Krecko, Linda Mahony, Olebeng Mahura, Kate Margetson, Cathie Matthews, Holly McAlister, Nicole McGill, Anne McLeod, Michelle Milan, Ben Pham, Azizur Rahman, Arifa Rahman, Mehdi Rassafiani, Goutam Roy, Shukla Sikder, Lindsay Smith, Sarah Stenson, Van H. Tran, Kelly Tribolet, Audrey (Cen) Wang, Emily-Jane Woodhead, Cherie Zischke

ASHA evenings

Each evening at the ASHA convention there are receptions and events that are fantastic opportunities for networking and planning future collaborations. Here are some of the events Holly McAlister (my PhD student) and I have been invited to and attended:

Wednesday

• Researcher-Academic Town Meeting (RATM)
• ASHA Presidents' Reception (as a guest of Julie Malone)
• Award celebration with  Prof. Kenneth St Louis, Seyhun Topbas, Ahmet Konrot and İlknur Mavis

Thursday

• Kiwi Party - University of Canterbury, NZ
  
• ASHA Asian Pacific Islander Caucus (API SIH CAUCUS) - ASHA social hour
• International Reception
• Multicultural Concerns Collective (MC2)
  

Friday

• Reception in honour of Plural Publishing's 20th anniversary and Angie S. Singh's award
• Dr. Liz Peña's ASHA Honors Reception
• Dr. Jon Preston's ASHA Fellow Reception
• Dr. Carol Scheffner Hammer's ASHA Honors Reception
  

Researcher-Academic Town Meeting (RATM) with Prof. Nat Munro (Australia) on the screen

ASHA President Tena L. McNamara, AuD, CCC-A/SLP
with Holly McAlister, Julie Malone and Sharynne McLeod

Hong Kong Speech Therapists' Association representatives with Holly and Sharynne and the ASHA President's reception

President's reception with Julie Malone - Board Member at Large

International Reception - Holly McAlister, Cara Jane Millar (Australia), Kath Broofield (UK), Anthony Pak (Hong Kong SAR China), Eddy Wong (Hong Kong SAR China), Sharynne McLeod

RATM: Nicole, Karla Washington, Chelsea Sommer, Holly McAlister, Kath Broomfield, Lynn Williams, Anthony Pak, Kelly Farquharson, Sharynne McLeod

Asia Pacific Caucus (Holly and I are on the right)

Final email to Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research Sturt Scheme members

Here is the email that I just sent to the members of the Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research Sturt Scheme this evening

Early Childhood Voices 2024 (ECV2024)
Thank you for all you have done to ensure that the Early Childhood Voices 2024 conference was a success this week
https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/early-childhood-voices-conference-2024/
At 6pm on Thursday 1333 people from 54 countries had registered to attend our amazing 4 keynotes, 147 oral presentations and children's voices presentations across three streams, yarning circles, and a workshop

• STREAM 1: Early childhood voices: International interdisciplinary research - https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/early-childhood-voices-conference-2024/by-topics/
• STREAM 2: Multilingual children's speech development - https://multilingual-childrens-speech-development.csu.domains/
• STREAM 3: Children draw playing global online galleries - https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/early-childhood-voices-conference-2024/children-draw-playing/

As you know, you can continue to access the conference any time as the website will remain online.
Conference proceedings: https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/early-childhood-voices-conference-2024/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/ECV2024-BOOK-FINAL.pdf

Make sure you look at the Children’s Press Gallery video summarizing their reporting of the launch (found underneath the Acknowledgment of Country video - https://earlychildhoodresearch.csu.domains/early-childhood-voices-conference-2024/)

A HUGE thank you to Dr Carolyn Gregoric, our conference secretary and Dr Belinda Downey, our conference co-chair,  and to all of you for your roles (large and small) to ensure ECV2024 was a success. As our keynote speaker said – it takes a village to raise a village.

Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research Sturt Scheme
We have come to the end of the Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research Sturt Scheme (ECIR). We have achieved so much together. Our final report is attached. Please feel proud of all you have achieved together.

Exciting news: Children’s Voices Centre (CVC)

Yesterday, Vice Chancellor Professor Renée Leon approved the establishment of the Children’s Voices Centre for three years (2025-2027). HOORAY!!! We have just (soft) launched the Children’s Voices Centre website so you can find out more  https://www.csu.edu.au/research/childrens-voices-centre. We will provide more details in February 2025.

We are excited about what the future holds for our team and look forward to future collaborations to make a difference in children’s lives across the world. Thank you and best wishes for the holiday season.

CSU Conscia Mentoring Program - End-of-Program Celebration

This morning was the CSU Conscia Mentoring Program - End-of-Program Celebration. 

I have been a mentor for Belinda Cash, and also a group of colleagues about writing/editing books. It has been a productive year - and I have learned a lot.

CSU had 56 mentors and 83 mentees this year.
Here is the summary of the celebration event:

This program has provided a valuable opportunity to learn from experienced researchers, enhancing your skills in research capabilities, outputs, and leadership, as well as supporting your career development.
This celebration will be a chance to share your experiences, provide feedback, and offer suggestions for future initiatives.
An overview of how this program can enhance your Research Performance Indicator (RPI) will also be provided.
We look forward to celebrating with you!

Cathy LeCerf
on behalf of the Faculty Associate Deans of Research

 

Early Childhood Voices: Children, Families, Professionals (2e)

Our CSU editorial team met again today - and submitted our book proposal for a second edition/volume of Early Childhood Voices: Children, Families, Professionals (2e). We have already received an initial positive response from the commissioning editor. 

Editorial team: Shukla Sikder, Sharynne McLeod, Sarah Verdon, Lysa Dealtry, Sheena Elwick

Inspirational colleagues

I really enjoy mentoring my colleagues. I am towards the end of my year of mentoring my colleague A/Prof Belinda Cash. We had a fantastic meeting celebrating her achievements this year. Congratulations Belinda! Here are two associations she is involved with:

• International Longevity Centre Global Alliance (ILC Global Alliance) https://www.ilc-alliance.org/
• Manna Institute https://mannainstitute.au/

 

Early Childhood Voices has arrived

Our new book - Early Childhood Voices has just arrived. It is always great to hold a new book. I am so proud of this book - a collaboration between members of the Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research Group. It was a privilege to mentor the book editors (Linda, Andi and Jenny) to edit their first book - and to support the chapter authors - most of whom had never written a book chapter. The Preface also features my friend, Elsie Hey-Cunningham's excellent drawing of talking over Zoom.

Sharynne and Jane McCormack with the chapter they co-authored with Kate Crowe

Buildling a culture of philanthropy

 I have been invited as one of six people from across CSU to participate in a mentoring program titled "Building a culture of philanthropy." The initiative is from Sarah Ansell, Justin Williams and the CSU Advancement Office (https://www.csu.edu.au/office/advancement/home) who has invited David Pettigrew from Nourish nfp to provide the program (https://nourishnfp.com/). I am excited to learn.

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)

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Board of Directors

Congratulations to my long-time colleague Julie D. Malone, CCC-SLP who has just been announced as Board Member at Large in Speech-Language Pathology for after her election to the 2025 Board of Directors of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. https://www.asha.org/news/2024/2024-board-of-directors-election-results/ Julie came from the US as a volunteer to work with me at The University of Sydney over 20 years ago. Congratulations Julie.

ECV2024 Scientific Review Committee

The abstracts for the ECV2024 Conference are due on 29th July - so today we had the ECV2024 Scientific Review Committee meeting and learned how to review abstracts.

ECV2024 Scientific Review Committee chairs: Dr Suzanne Hopf, Prof Sharynne McLeod, Dr Leanne Gibbs

Mentoring - Congratulations Belinda on achieving most of your mentoring goals by July!

Congratulations A/Prof Belinda Cash on submitting a grant yesterday, finalising 5 projects, having 3 papers accepted in 2024, 3 under review, and 5 in draft mode. I am really proud of your management strategies to make a huge difference in the area of in rural mental health and ageing. I also learn a lot from our conversations.