Invited, keynote, and public lectures in 2024

 2024 has been a busy year (and this list doesn't include the regular conference presentations)!

1. McLeod, S., Blake, H. L., Margetson, K., & Verdon, S. (2024, December). Culturally appropriate assessment in international contexts. [Invited 1-hour session]. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention, Seattle, WA, USA. https://convention.asha.org/ 
2. McLeod, S. & Margetson, K. (2024, Oct 19-20). Children’s speech assessment and intervention: What works? What’s new? What’s the evidence?. [2-day invited workshop]. Chinese University of Hong Kong Speech and Hearing Social Enterprise. Hong Kong, SAR China
3. McLeod, S. & Margetson, K. (2024, Oct 18). Speech Assessment of Children’s Home Language(s) (SACHL). [3-hour invited lecture]. Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, SAR China.
4. McLeod, S. & Wren, Y. (2024, September 12-14). Children’s communication, educational, social and participation outcomes: Insights from longitudinal population studies [Invited keynote]. 23rd Congress of Otorhinolaryngology Foundation [23o Congresso da FORL], Sao Paulo, Brazil. https://www.congressoforl.org/
5. McLeod, S. (2024, September 12-14). Multilingual children’s speech development, assessment and interventions [Invited keynote]. 23rd Congress of Otorhinolaryngology Foundation [23o Congresso da FORL], Sao Paulo, Brazil https://www.congressoforl.org/
6. McLeod, S. (2024, September 12-14). Communication rights and the Sustainable Development Goals [Invited keynote]. 23rd Congress of Otorhinolaryngology Foundation [23o Congresso da FORL], Sao Paulo, Brazil https://www.congressoforl.org/
7. McLeod, S., Blake, H. L. & Margetson, K. (2024, June 27-29). Multilingual speech development and disorders: A contemporary perspective of children’s speech development in languages of the world [Invited presentation]. 100th Anniversary Celebration of the International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders (IALP), Vienna, Austria (online). https://ialp-org.com/event/9853/
8. McLeod, S. (2024, June). Are we really listening to children? [Invited keynote]. Child Language Teaching and Therapy 2024 Summer Lecture, London, UK (online).
9. McLeod, S. (2024, May 23). Multilingual children’s speech. [Invited lecture]. Bristol Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Visiting Professor Presentation. Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK. https://www.bristol.ac.uk/international-research-development/visiting-researchers/visitors-for-202324/sharynne_mcleod/
10. McLeod, S. (2024, May 15). Communication professionals need to advocate for communication rights and the Sustainable Development Goals. [Seminar]. School of Arts, Culture and Language, Bangor University. Bangor, UK. https://www.bangor.ac.uk/arts-culture-language/dlelb
11. McLeod, S. (2024, May 3). Communication rights and social justice: Enhancing communicative participation for children with speech, language and communication needs. [Seminar]. Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. Cambridge, UK. https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/
12. McLeod, S. (2024, April 30). All children should be seen AND heard: The importance of communication so children can thrive. [Invited lecture]. Bristol Speech and Language Therapy Research Unit and Underwood Trust Annual Lecture, Bristol, UK. https://www.nbt.nhs.uk/Bristol-Speech-Language-Therapy-Research-Unit
13. McLeod, S. (2024, April 29). Speech, language and communication: An overview for dentists. [Invited lecture]. Bristol Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Visiting Professor Presentation. Bristol Dental School, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK. https://www.bristol.ac.uk/international-research-development/visiting-researchers/visitors-for-202324/sharynne_mcleod/
14. McLeod, S. (2024, April 24). Communicating with children and families in a multilingual world. [Invited lecture]. School of Sport and Health Sciences, Cardiff Metropolitan University Lecture, Llandaff, Wales, UK.
15. McLeod, S. & Margetson, K. (2024, April 18). Assessing children’s speech in unfamiliar languages: Insights from Vietnamese-English children [Invited keynote]. XI LLDI Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.  
16. McLeod, S. (2024, February). Supporting monolingual and multilingual children’s phonological development. [Invited keynote]. 2024 Nancy McKinley Lecture organised by the American Board of Child Language & Language Disorders (online).  https://www.speechpathology.com/slp-ceus/course/supporting-monolingual-and-multilingual-children-10849

Provocations blog post

I have been invited to write a Provocations Blog post following on from my CSU Public Lecture. 

 Here is the link to my post: https://provocationsqa.csu.edu.au/communication-is-a-human-right-but-not-everyone-can-communicate-effectively/   

 

Provocations https://provocationsqa.csu.edu.au/ and information about the blog:

Provocations is a series of blogs written by prominent thinkers that seek to address the grand challenges confronting regional Australia and the world. How can we mitigate climate change and build climate proof, safe and sustainable communities? Can First Nations ways of knowing, being and doing guide sustainable development? How can we reinforce Australia’s supply chains and sovereign manufacturing capability in a post-Covid world? Is it possible to achieve productive and circular agriculture? How can we reduce income inequality between urban and regional Australia and build more inclusive communities? Does liberal democracy need to be redefined in a post-Covid world? How can we build a knowledgeable, inclusive and resilient citizenry prepared for the challenges of the future? Does Australia’s relationship with China require a radical rethink? Is there a role for faith in contemporary democratic thought? Provocations will challenge orthodoxy through new thinking but will also revive policy ideas and political thought from the past for one more encore.

 

Provocations Public Lecture: Statistics

Statistics from my Provocations Public Lecture (20 April 2023): 

"Children should be seen AND heard: the importance of communication so children can thrive"

Video presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjaxZ97_D3Y

Royal Society of NSW blog: https://royalsoc.org.au/blog/western-nsw-branch-meeting-2023-1

Synchronous attendance 

• Tickets - 117 
• Face-to-face - 47 attendees
  
• Online - 132 views during the event
  

• 77 from Australia 
• 52 from Ghana 
• 1 from South Africa 
• 1 from Iceland 
• 1 from Nigeria

Asynchronous attendance - 67 views

 

CSU Research Communique

CSU new research magazine - Communique - highlights quite a few things that I have been doing with my team; https://www.csu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/4179896/Research-Communique,-Autumn-2023.pdf

 

CSU Provocations Lecture: "Children should be seen AND heard: the importance of communication so children can thrive"

I was invited to present Charles Sturt University's first Provocations Public Lecture on 20th April 2023.  It was a joint presentation between Charles Sturt University and the Western NSW Branch of the Royal Society of NSW

 

Video presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjaxZ97_D3Y

Royal Society of NSW blog: https://royalsoc.org.au/blog/western-nsw-branch-meeting-2023-1 

"Children should be seen AND heard: the importance of communication so children can thrive"

Professor Sharynne McLeod FRSN FASSA 

Professor of Speech and Language Acquisition, Charles Sturt University

Summary: Communication is a human right for everyone – including children. Being an effective communicator is essential for children’s belonging, being, and becoming – and their ability to thrive. The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights describes our right to freedom of opinion and expression and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas. This right is echoed in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, Australian health, education, and disability legislation and policies rarely mention children’s communication. 

This presentation will draw on extensive large-scale evidence regarding Australian children’s communicative competence and capacity. Children’s drawings, personal insights, and data from 10,000 children within the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) will be described and the communicative competence of multilingual and Indigenous children will be celebrated. 

Approximately a quarter of parents of Australian 4- to 5-year-olds in LSAC were concerned about how their child talked and made speech sounds. Longitudinal analyses of LSAC data demonstrated the negative impact of preschool children’s speech and language competency on their subsequent literacy, numeracy, and socialisation. While there are many evidence-based speech pathology interventions to support children’s speech and language skills, “long speech pathology waiting lists” have been identified by an Australian Government Senate Inquiry for almost a decade. Innovations (e.g., websites, computer programs) to reduce the impact of these long waiting lists have been funded by the Australian Research Council and NSW Health; however, most have demonstrated limited improvements on children’s speech and language. This presentation will conclude with a range of policy solutions for interdisciplinary, cross-sectoral change to enable Australia’s children to be seen AND heard so they can thrive. 

About the Speaker: Sharynne McLeod PhD is a speech-language pathologist and professor of speech and language acquisition at Charles Sturt University, Australia. She is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and the Royal Society of New South Wales, was an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and has received Honors of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and Life Membership of Speech Pathology Australia. She has co-authored 13 books and 250+ peer-reviewed journal articles and chapters primarily focusing on children’s speech acquisition, speech sound disorders, and multilingualism and has free resources in over 70 languages on the Multilingual Children’s Speech website. She has provided expertise to the World Health Organization and has presented at the United Nations about communication rights. The Australian Newspaper named her Australia’s Research Field Leader in Audiology, Speech and Language Pathology (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022) and Best in the World based on the “quality, volume and impact” of research in the field (2019, 2023).

There were many attendees in person in Bathurst and online. What a privilege to present this lecture. 

Rethinking Applied Policy Workshop @CSU and public lecture

Next week a 2-day workshop will be held in Bathurst to co-design a new applied policy research initiative at CSU. I have been working with Professor Mark Evans, Deputy Vice Chancellor - Research, and Nilima Mathai from the DVC-R's office to organise the event.

CSU has just posted a media release about the public lecture I will present during the workshop: Free public lecture on the effect of speech deficiencies in pre-school children

The right to accessible communication/acoustic environments

This morning I met with Adam Bannister, Director, Pyrus Event Services to discuss the audio visual requirments for my upcoming public lecture. I was so immpressed by his knowledge and capacity to provide accessible communication environments using quality acoustics, captioning (via stenographers), Auslan interpreters, etc. His work aligns with our work on communication rights:

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

Van Den Heuij, K. M. L., Neijenhuis, K., & Coene, M. (2018). Acoustic environments that support equally accessible oral higher education as a human right. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 20(1), 108-114. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2017.1413136

Later this morning the School of Education Board meeting was discussing universal design for all of our students. What important concepts to discuss today.

What kind of public good is language maintenance?

Yesterday (5th December), Dr Van Tran, Dr Suzanne Hopf and I were able to attend the Michael Clyne lecture given by Professor Jo Lo Bianco at The University of Sydney. The lecture was titled: "What kind of public good is language maintenance?" It was an honour to hear Prof Lo Bianco speak, since he has had such an influence on language policy throughout Australia for so many years.  It was also interesting to listen to him speak about  language rights and to hear about the Salzburg Statement for a Multilingual World (2017).

He ended by saying "...there is a potentially deep conceptual change underway, involving a radical reconfiguring of what counts as normal communication". I believe that the work undertaken with multilingual and multimodal children and families by our SLM team in Australia, Fiji, Vietnam, Denmark, The Netherlands, UK, and other countries is contributing to this "radical reconfiguring of what counts as normal communication"

Prof Jo Lo Bianco

Dr Van Tran, Sharynne, Dr Suzanne Hopf

 Here is the description of the event from the Sydney Institute of Community Languages Education site:

Joseph Lo Bianco, Professor of Language and Literacy Education at the University of Melbourne joins the SICLE Seminar Series to deliver its annual Michael Clyne lecture. Professor Lo Bianco is author of Australia’s formal language policy, the National Policy on Languages, adopted in 1987, the first multilingual language policy in an English-speaking country.
In this year’s Michael Clyne lecture, Professor Lo Bianco will be looking at how the term ‘language education’ has a diverse range of activities whose essential differences are often overlooked by policy makers and even researchers. The teaching of languages foreign to their learners is a radically different activity from efforts to maintain spoken community languages across generations. Sociologically and therefore pedagogically, socio-linguistically and therefore in identity terms, teaching and maintaining a community language has its own unique value which needs to be considered in a broader context.
Using a multidisciplinary approach, this lecture draws upon thinking from public good theory in economics, restorative justice reasoning in ethics and law, as well from pedagogical efficiency and equity rationales, to develop a robust account of why Australian language education efforts should make intergenerational language maintenance a central feature of language policy. Should it be a right to learn one’s heritage language? Professor Lo Bianco will also distinguish a case for language rights and discuss the evolution of language rights thinking in international instruments. Specific reference will be made to the turbulent history of indigenous bilingual education for language maintenance of languages spoken by children in the Northern Territory, and the case of language reclamation by urban Aboriginal people, and intergenerational maintenance of immigrant community languages.
The lecture will be followed by a Q&A session. Please join us explore and discuss current themes in the world of community languages education.

Honourable Michael Kirby lecture on human rights law at CSU

Today the Honourable Michael Kirby AC CMG presented a public lecture at Charles Sturt University titled: "International Human Rights Law: Challenges at Home and in the Region".
He spoke about how in 1949 he received a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (on airmail paper) at school, and how discussion of this document influenced his path into law. Two of his most recent appointments have been as Chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights Violations in North Korea for 2013-2014, and the UNAIDS/OHCHR's panel on the overreach of criminal law.
Read more at http://news.csu.edu.au/events/bathurst/public-lecture-by-the-honourable-michael-kirby-ac-cmg

Honourable Michael Kirby

Refugees in rural Australia: Constance on the Edge

Last night at a Charles Sturt University Public Lecture, the film Constance on the Edge was screened. The CSU news release is here and information about the film is here. It portrayed a the story of a family from Sudan who moved to Wagga Wagga. It was a powerful, heartening, and thought-provoking film of the joys and struggles of a family and their fight for survival, human rights and belonging.