International Speech Screener recording session and testing with young friends

This morning Dom Ingersole from CSU Communications recorded my speech at the CSU radio station to be imported into the updated International Speech Screener to be used in our CeTasSSD research project. Thanks Dom!

I had a delightful weekend practicing using the ISS with some of my young friends. One 4;5 year old said that she liked it, her favourite part of the test was the smiley face and there was nothing she wanted me to change. Her Mum said to remind children to keep their hands away from their mouths - and put the device close to the child. Thanks for your helpful feedback.

CSU news item about the CVC launch

Join us in celebrating the official launch of the Charles Sturt University Children's Voices Centre - a pioneering hub for transformative interdisciplinary research with, for and about children.

10:30am Wednesday 1 October (Australian Eastern Standard time)

* at The Treehouse, Building 1451, Research Station Drive, Charles Sturt University Bathurst campus 

* or online https://charlessturt.zoom.us/j/69606943832

To find out more, visit: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/childrens-voices-centre-launchtickets-1558210642979

CSU News story:

Shaping a better world for children ─ innovative new research centre opens in Bathurst

https://news.csu.edu.au/in-brief/shaping-a-better-world-for-children-innovative-new-research-centre-opens-in-bathurst

Dr Tamara Cumming was interviewed by 2MCE for their breakfast news broadcast. 

CSU News - Radio interview

 CSU News has released the following story titled "Two Charles Sturt research leaders acknowledged among Australia's best"

https://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/two-charles-sturt-research-leaders-acknowledged-among-australias-best

I was interviewed by 2BS Radio about the news story today. It is a great opportunity to speak publicly about the importance of young children's communication, supporting children to maintain speaking all of their home languages, and also the importance of seeking assistance early if parents are concerned.

The story was to celebrate this announcement by The Australian Newspaper:https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2023/11/australias-field-leader-audiology.html

Radio interviews in 2023

Sharynne at radio 2BS

There has been media interest surrounding the announcement regarding being one of "Nine Aussie Researchers are Planet's Best". I have been interviewed by 

• 2BS radio in Bathurst 
• ABC Riverina Breakfast 

It has been a great opportunity to talk about children's communication during the week that children are beginning school.

SBS radio interview: How does communication affect a child's development?

My interview on SBS radio has just been broadcast: Năng lực giao tiếp có ảnh hưởng đến sự phát triển của trẻ như thế nào? [How does communication affect a child's development?] https://www.sbs.com.au/language/vietnamese/audio/nang-luc-giao-tiep-co-anh-huong-den-su-phat-trien-cua-tre-nhu-the-nao 

Với trẻ gốc Việt sinh sống ở nước ngoài, khả năng giao tiếp của các em chịu ảnh hưởng của nhiều yếu tố, trong đó có việc duy trì tiếng mẹ đẻ. Năng lực giao tiếp của trẻ nói hai hay nhiều thứ tiếng cần được quan tâm và nuôi dưỡng thế nào cho đúng? [For children of Vietnamese origin living abroad, their communication ability is influenced by many factors, including maintaining their mother tongue. How should the communication ability of children who speak two or more languages be properly cared for and nurtured?] 

Here is the English translation of the Vietnamese transcript: 

Communication is one of the basic human rights. Everyone has the right to say what they want in their own language, especially in their mother tongue (Article 5, Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, UNESCO, 2001). Likewise with children, they have the right to communicate, talk, express their feelings and it is our duty as adults to create the best conditions and opportunities for them to be able to promote these rights. maximally. How does communication affect children's intellectual, emotional, and spiritual development? You and Hong Van are invited to chat with Professor Sharynne McLeod from Charles Sturt University to learn more about this topic. Professor McLeod was voted by The Australian newspaper as the world's leading professor in the field of speech therapy (Discipline Leader in Speech and Language Pathology) for three consecutive years 2018, 2019, 2020 according to the quality and number of criteria. volume and influence. In 2021, she is the first foreigner to receive the American Speech and Hearing Association (ASHA) Honor Award since its inception in 1944. Hi Professor McLeod, thank you for accepting the invitation to interview SBS Vietnamese together. 

Prof. McLeod: Happy New Year. Hello friends! I am very pleased to speak on the topic of children's communicative competence. 

With your experience and achievements in research on children's speech and language in more than 60 languages around the world, can you tell us what the ability to communicate means to a child's development? 

Prof. McLeod: Thank you SBS for giving me the opportunity to talk about this topic today. Many people consider learning to speak as one of the most miraculous human development. The ability to communicate affects many aspects such as self, relationships, education, work, social participation, health and spiritual life. So I'm looking forward to talking to you about the effects of communication on the lives of children, especially children in Australia. 

Can you explain a little bit about the concept of “communication”? In your opinion, what are the components of communication?

Prof. McLeod: Communication is a two-way interactive process. When it comes to communication, people talk about three main components: Language, speech, and hearing. Language is concerned with the ability to understand and express spoken, written, and sign language. Speech, the second component, the area that I am particularly interested in researching, is related to pronunciation, the ability to say sounds so that others understand me. For bilingual children like Vietnamese children in Australia, we see an interesting phenomenon that they often pronounce Vietnamese sounds influenced by English sounds or vice versa. Speech is also associated with problems with speech, such as hoarseness and stuttering. The third component of communication is Hearing, which is the ability to hear and receive sounds. 

Can you tell why some children have language and communication problems? 

Prof. McLeod: It's a difficult question because in most cases (70%-80%) children come to speech therapy clinics, we don't know the underlying cause why children have developmental disorders. Speech Sound Disorder, it is not known why children have Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). We only know the cause of a small number of children with language and communication problems. These are cases where children have hearing problems or have congenital intellectual disabilities or brain diseases. However, we know how to help children overcome communication difficulties, improve pronunciation and language ability. So if you are concerned about your child's pronunciation and language, contact your local health center for a referral to free speech therapy services (if available with Medicare) and to other health care providers. private service. In some states, the service is also available in kindergartens and schools. 

Professor and colleagues did a very famous study on the relationship between communication ability and the academic performance and mental life of children in Australia. Could you tell me about some of the main results of this study? 

Prof. McLeod: This is a long-term study from 2003, also called Growing up in Australia. We took data from 10,000 children, including 5,000 1-3 year olds and 5,000 4-5 year olds. We have tracked children in nine data sets from 2003 to the present and have found many important results. One of those results is the relationship between children's communication ability and their learning capacity as well as their emotional and spiritual life. When children are 4-5 years old, 25% of parents and 22% of teachers have concerns about their child's pronunciation and language, I want to emphasize that this is the main language children use in the family, not 2nd or 3rd language. Thus, many people worry about the language ability of children aged 4-5 years old. We monitored and compared the reports of parents and teachers, the results of the NAPLAN national exam of children in the group of 25% worried parents with children in the group of 75% of parents who were not worried and found that when the children At 8-9 years old, parents of children in the 25% group will worry more about their children's literacy than parents in the 75% group. When they were 12-13 years old and 14-15 years old, they continued to have more learning problems than children in the 75% group. As they got older, they made more progress, but at a slower rate than the children in the other group. Their results on the NAPLAN test in all subjects of reading, writing, grammar, and arithmetic were lower than those in the other group. 

Thus, when children are at school age, if parents have concerns about their child's language or pronunciation, it is more likely that the child will have learning problems when going to school, easily falling behind in school. throughout the high school years, compared with children whose parents had no concerns. During the period from 4-5 years old to 14-15 years old, were the children whose parents worried about their ability to communicate, received any support or intervention? 

Prof. McLeod: That's a very good question. A large part of these children do not receive early intervention or support. It is not easy for teachers to find out that the children have problems with language and pronunciation skills because most of the children in this group are quiet and if the family and school don't pay attention, no one will do anything. , and they keep growing up with those difficulties, which leads to them not doing well in school. 

Thus, there is a relationship between children's communication ability and learning ability. What about their spiritual and emotional lives? How does limited communication capacity affect the children's spiritual life? 

Prof. McLeod: That's a very good question. In the group of children aged 8-9, we asked about their school experiences and found that for the group of children where 25% of their parents were worried when they were 4-5 years old, when they were 8-9 years old, they said know that children are bullied more, have fewer friends, and don't like going to school as much as children in the group of non-anxious parents. In short, if you have concerns about your preschooler's ability to communicate, you should seek help as soon as possible. If you haven't done it yet, it's never too late. Well-trained and professionally trained speech and speech therapists in Australia will help figure out what your child's problem is and the right treatment will have a positive impact on academics, social interactions and learning. socialization, interest in school, and ability to socialize with other children. 

For children who speak two or more languages like Vietnamese children abroad, how should their communication ability be properly assessed?  

Prof. McLeod: This is the most important question in today's talk. Some studies have mentioned the concept of "double disability", i.e. if a child has language and pronunciation problems but still speaks another language at home, it is considered a problem. its language disability becomes more severe and so many people recommend giving up the mother tongue. This is a mistake because our studies with thousands of children have shown that the ability to speak two or more languages is a superpower. There were no differences in reading, writing, math skills, and social communication between monolingual and multilingual children. We compared the NAPLAN test results of children who speak a language and children who speak a language other than English at home, and found that by grade 3, children in these two groups have equal achievements in all categories. reading, writing, arithmetic, and grammar items. 

So how to distinguish children with general language problems from children with one language delay due to exposure to two or more languages? 

Prof. Mcleod: If you're worried because your child doesn't speak English well while being very good at Vietnamese, it's not a problem with speech or language, and don't go to a speech therapist. Only see a speech therapist if you find that your child does not speak Vietnamese well even though it is your family's home language, or both Vietnamese and English are not good. That is, if you stutter, speak no one understands, pronounce consonants that are not found in both Vietnamese and English, you speak but family members like grandparents, aunts and uncles who often listen to you also If you don't understand, then it's time to intervene. 

Thank you to Professor Sharynne McLeod for this wonderfully informative and very helpful talk, especially for families with children of a language development age.

... Wishing Vietnamese families in Australia as well as in other countries around the world always keep their bilingual ability, speak both English and Vietnamese, what Professor McLeod calls superpower, superpower. Wishing you a healthy and peaceful new year 2022.

SBS Podcast "My Bilingual Family"

Our VietSpeech team have been contacted by Masako Fukui and Sheila Pham who are developing a new SBS podcast "My Bilingual Family" that focusses on parents trying to raise their kids bilingually (or multilingually). The podcast will be in English, but parts of it will be translated into other languages and broadcast on SBS Radio. 

Masako Fukui and Sheila Pham (https://www.sheilatakeabow.com/) have just finished another podcast/radio series for ABC Radio National (RN) called Tongue Tied and Fluent, which just last month won an international award. Tongue Tied and Fluent was directed at a much wider audience. 

Here is the link to Tongue Tied and Fluent: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/earshot/features/tongue-tied-and-fluent/

Dr Van Tran from our VietSpeech team is also hosting an SBS podcast in Vietnamese to support home language maintenance called "Let's maintain Vietnamese together" https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2021/11/sbs-radio-program-lets-maintain.html

SBS Radio Program "Let's Maintain Vietnamese Together"

Dr Van Tran from our VietSpeech team is hosting a weekly radio program on SBS titled "Maintaining Vietnamese together". It is broadcast on SBS Vietnamese for 15 minutes every Sunday evening (7-9pm). The first show was titled: "Why do you want to maintain Vietnamese for your children?" 

The aims of the program include: 

• Providing the Vietnamese community in Australia and overseas with information and guidance related to the maintenance of mother tongue when living abroad 
• Raising awareness of the importance of Vietnamese maintenance among the Vietnamese community in Australia and enhancing understanding of and raising interest in Vietnamese language and culture
• Promoting Australia’s multilingualism and multiculturalism 

These aims will be addressed through interviews and focus-group discussions on topics including: 

• Reasons for maintaining home language
• Challenges in maintaining home language
• Strategies and Support in maintaining home language
• Recommendations for support
• Features of Vietnamese language in relation to culture (dialects, grammar, expressions, folk language and culture) 
• Models of successful Vietnamese maintenance

Here is the URL link to one of the programs:

https://www.sbs.com.au/language/vietnamese/audio/ha-y-cu-ng-giu-tie-ng-vie-t-cho-con?cid=lang:socialshare:facebook&fbclid=IwAR16ViKCWHNmpaoA2c-whIoNDohb5zaeq9MvRcnk08Yxp4q46Vjat24gib0

 

Here is another program: https://www.sbs.com.au/language/vietnamese/audio/cu-ng-giu-tie-ng-vie-t-bo-me-co-don-thuong-doc-ma-khi-giu-tieng-viet-cho-con?fbclid=IwAR1X1GpbnleCCJIUVX6KPnD2oATWKeFeFJg3x2T_OzqacGka_77z-njP9cY

 

ABC radio interview

This morning I had a radio interview with Bec Simmons from ABC Gippsland and Goulburn-Murray 9:25-9:38am to talk about children's speech acquisition. The interview was prompted by this CSU news release: https://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/when-do-children-learn-speech-sounds We covered speech acquisition, multilingualism, transition to school, and the impact of mask-wearing during COVID on children's speech and language.

World research leader in Audiology, Speech and Language Pathology

Today, The Australian published their annual list of Research Field Leaders across 258 areas. I have been named Australia's field leader in Audiology, Speech and Language Pathology and Charles Sturt University has been named the lead institution in the field.
We also won this accolade in 2018; however, this year, The Australian has run a feature story, because they also found that I was the most published and cited in the world in my field. I was named "top of the world" (p. 26) in a list with 13 other people in different fields across Australia!

Top of the world. "These Australian-based researchers are best in the world in their field based on the quality, volume and impact of their work” (The Australian Research Magazine, 25 September 2019, p. 9) https://specialreports.theaustralian.com.au/1540291/top-of-the-world/

The Australian news story is here

"Some world No 1 researchers are located in places where many would not expect to them to be. Charles Sturt University’s Sharynne McLeod is based in Bathurst, west of the Dividing Range in NSW, where she is professor of speech and language ­acquisition. Her work, and academic leadership, is of such quality that not only does she personally top Australia, and the world, in audiology, speech and language pathology research, but her university is also the lead ­research institution in Australia in this field." (The Australian, 25 September 2019, p. 26)
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/australias-researchers-are-top-of-the-world/news-story/da49e9723818fde2d28ce7a9d08f538c

The Australian Research magazine is available here: https://specialreports.theaustralian.com.au/
They indicated that "people who have taken career breaks would find it harder to perform well on the measures we’ve used" (p. 58). Being awarded "top in the world" is even more special, since last year I was unable to work for most of the year due to health issues.

“Our methodology took into account both the volume of research produced and its quality. In each field we considered all papers in the top 20 refereed journals in that particular field (which Google Scholar determines using an H-index based measure of journal impact) by researchers in Australian institutions over the past five years. Then we counted the number of citations each paper has received. The top researcher (and the top institution) in each field is the one whose papers have been cited most often.” https://specialreports.theaustralian.com.au/1540291/35/

I am very grateful to work with amazing colleagues, including the CSU team (from the Schools of Teacher Education and Community Health) who have published research in audiology and speech-language pathology over the past few years: Dr Kate Crowe, Dr Sarah Verdon, A/Prof Jane McCormack, Dr Sarah Masso, Dr Suzanne Hopf, Professor Linda Harrison, Dr Audrey Wang, Dr Graham Daniel, Dr Tamara Cumming, Dr Van Tran, Dr Ben Pham, Mrs Nicole McGill, Ms Helen Blake, Ms Anna Cronin, Dr Michelle Brown, Dr Catherine Easton, Dr Michelle Smith-Tamaray, Dr Linda Wilson, Dr Lisa Brown, and Dr Laura Hoffman.

• CSU published a news story (25 September 2019) about the award here: https://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/charles-sturt-speech-pathology-expert-sitting-on-top-of-the-world
• The Campus Review story (27 September 2019) is here: https://www.campusreview.com.au/2019/09/australian-researcher-named-worlds-best/
• CSU published a second news story (30 September 2019) here: https://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/two-of-the-best-charles-sturt-researchers-acknowledged-as-national-leaders
• The Western Advocate story (1 October 2019) is here: https://www.westernadvocate.com.au/story/6413602/news-from-csu-global-leader-making-a-difference-in-young-lives/?cs=13505

I have also been interviewed for:

• Radio station 2BS (28 September 2019)