CET Speech Census - Last week

We are working hard to finalise our CET speech census this week before the children all go on school holidays. We have just over 1000 consent forms returned. I have entered data for 733 assessments - but our team has done more than this (yay team!). I entered the data Ally gave me this afternoon for another 46 assessments. Helen did over 30 today (I haven't entered these yet). What an amazing team - and incredible children and teaching staff.

Ally and Sharynne heading to The Nest in The Treehouse for more data collection with the children

Sharynne, Ally Barrett and Emma Scanlon 
at the end of a big day assessing wonderful children

Tasmanian speech study - data analysis and preparation for 2026 data collection

This week I have spent a lot of time on our Tasmanian speech study (CeTasSSD). I have undertaken data analysis with Dr Nicola Ivory - which involved more data cleaning therefore beginning all of the analyses again (a very typical scenario in quantitative data analysis). I have hired a new research assistant, Emma Scanlon and worked on finalising the International Speech Screen with Helen Blake.

Emma Scanlon

Nicola Ivory

 

The important role of research support staff

This morning I have had the opportunity to meet with a number research support staff (current and past). The importance of their roles cannot be overstated. THANK YOU for all of the work that goes on in the background to ensure that high quality research is undertaken. 

Evelyn Sowter worked in our research team a few years ago.
It was lovely to meet with her this morning. Thanks Evelyn!

Catching up with Grace Kelly in Manchester

Grace Kelly worked with us at Charles Sturt University during 2021 and the beginning of 2022. She was our research assistant on the Say Bananas research. Our research has recently been published:

McLeod, S., Kelly, G., Ahmed, B., & Ballard, K. J. (2023). Equitable access to speech practice for rural Australian children using the SayBananas! mobile game. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2023.2205057 

She moved back to the UK just over a year ago - so it was really lovely that she came to Manchester for the evening to catch up.

Welcome Carolyn to ECIR and ECV2022

We are thrilled that Dr Carolyn Gregoric has begun as the Research Officer for the Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research Group this week. She is working on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays (21 hours/week) - hooray! Her first task is to support the Early Childhood Voices 2022 (ECV2022) Conference. Welcome Carolyn.

Dr Shukla Sikder, Sharynne, Dr Carolyn Gregoric

Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research (ECIR) research assistant and PhD student

Today we appointed our new Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research research assistant - Carolyn Gregoric.

We have also advertised the Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research PhD Scholarship. https://research.csu.edu.au/study-with-us/scholarships/early-childhood-interdisciplinary-research Applications close 13 June 2022. The scholarship will be awarded on a competitive basis to students undertaking innovative research aligned with one or more of the priorities below: 

1: Early childhood interdisciplinary practice in regional Australia In this theme we explore models of interdisciplinary practice in the first 2000 days and how successful models could be translated to optimise outcomes for infants and children in regional Australia. 

2: International children’s communication In this theme we explore how interdisciplinary practice can be harnessed to privilege children's rights and communication capacity. 

3: Listening to children’s perspectives using drawing In this theme we explore how children's drawings enable communication to transcend the inherent disciplinarity within education, health and wellbeing

Thanks and bon voyage Grace Kelly

Over the past year Grace Kelly has worked with Prof Kirrie Ballard and myself on Kirrie's AMP Tomorrow Fund grant to investigate the use of the SayBananas! app with children with speech sound disorders across rural Australia. Grace has been a fantastic colleague, and today was her last day before she heads back to the UK. We will miss her a lot - and hope to catch up with her when we get to visit the UK. We are finalising our analysis in order to present our research at the upcoming Speech Pathology Australia National Conference in May and then to submit our work to a journal.

Thanks again Grace!

Thanks Evelyn

Evelyn Sowter has been employed as my Professorial Research Assistant on our Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (DP180102848) from April to the end of December 2021. Evelyn has been an extremely valuable member of our VietSpeech research team. She has been meticulous, methodical and ethical in all of her work. I am disappointed that our grant funding has come to an end so that I cannot continue to employ her. I wish her all the best.

I work with great people

 This semester the following people are employed part time on our VietSpeech team (ARC Discovery Grant) (Dr Sarah Verdon and I are the chief investigators) 

1. Kate Margetson 
2. Van Tran 
3. Audrey (Cen) Wang 
4. Katherine White 
5. Lily To 
6. Evelyn Sowter 

 I also oversee a range of adjuncts who are variously involved in research projects 

1. Grace Kelly 
2. Kate Crowe 
3. Sarah Masso 
4. Nicole McGill 
5. Anna Cronin
6. Helen Blake 
7. Marie Ireland 

What a super team! Our work is documented throughout this blog.

VietSpeech data management

Today Evelyn Sowter and Katherine White worked together on systems for filing and digitising the VietSpeech data. It is an important part of research, especially since our team works from many different locations.

Evelyn Sowter in the CSU Bathurst office

Welcome Evelyn and Grace

Evelyn Sowter and Grace Kelly's first day at CSU

 

We are very excited to welcome Evelyn Sowter and Grace Kelly to work within our Speech-Language-Multilingualism team on different research projects.

• Evelyn is working as the professorial research assistant on our Australian Research Council VietSpeech grant
• Grace is a CSU visiting academic collaborating with Dr Kirrie Ballard (Co-founder of Say 66) on research to provide rural children with the Say Bananas app to support their speech development. The children will work with Grace and I to inform us about what works well and what may need to change when using the app in rural Australia.
  

Welcome to the team Evelyn and Grace.

Thank you to the SLM team for your support in 2019

Thank you so much to the following 20 people who have been part of the SLM team and have provided magnificent support throughout 2019

• Helen Blake - PhD student 
• Dr Michelle Brown - Postdoc 
• Anna Cronin - PhD student 
• Dr Kate Crowe - Research fellow 
• Dr Suzanne Hopf - Colleague
• Kylie Huynh - VietSpeech Research assistant 
• Kate Margetson - VietSpeech Project officer
• Dr Sarah Masso - Colleague 
• Holly McAlister - Honours student 
• A/Prof Jane McCormack - Colleague
• Nicole McGill - PhD student 
• Dr Ben Pham - Research fellow 
• Olivia Richards - StoryBabies Research assistant 
• Jake Sheader - Research assistant 
• Lily To - VietSpeech Research assistant 
• Dr Van Tran - PhD student 
• Dr Sarah Verdon - VietSpeech Co-investigator 
• Dr Cen (Audrey) Wang - VietSpeech Project officer

and special thanks to:

• Donna Bateup - SOTE Admin 
• David McLeod - Super supporter 
• and all of my colleagues across the world

Our work together means we have to trust each other in many ways as we grow to be better researchers, better people, and to create new knowledge that will benefit the world.

Finally, thanks to the Faculty of Arts and Education, Charles Sturt University, NSW Health, and the Australian Research Council for funding our research in 2019.

2019 Christmas tree filled with memories from around the world

Congratulations Grear

Today Grear McAdam graduated with a Bachelor of Communications (Radio) from CSU. Grear has been our research assistant over many years - so it was wonderful to be there to congratulate her.

Research assistants are wonderful!

I have a grant from the Faculty of Arts and Education to employ research assistants to support the research of our Speech-Language-Multilingualism team. My current research assistants are:

• Dr Kate Crowe - Multilingual Children's Speech
• Jake Sheader - Professorial support and VietSpeech
• Lily To - VietSpeech
• Kylie Huynh - VietSpeech
• Olivia Richards - StoryBabies

Their support makes a HUGE difference to the rigour and productivity of our research. It is great to have them on our team.

Jake Sheader

Lily and Kylie's role on the VietSpeech project is described here

Dr Michelle Brown and Olivia Richards (StoryBabies)

Welcome to new VietSpeech team members

Recently, the VietSpeech team has welcomed Lily To and Kylie Huynh as research assistants. They are final year speech pathology students and have brought excellent knowledge and skills to the team. The VietSpeech team are currently working with children (and their parents) to document Australian Vietnamese-English-speaking children’s speech acquisition in both Vietnamese and English and to consider the environmental influence of their parents' speech.
Welcome Lily and Kylie and thanks for your contributions to our study.

Dr Van Tran, Kate Margetson, Lily To and Kylie Huynh enjoying lunch between speech assessments

Day-to-day hard work with excellent colleagues

Grear McAdam, Ben Phạm and Linda Harrison in my office

Many of my blog posts are about things that happen outside of my office. This blog post is about what happens in my office. I work with excellent colleagues, students and research assistants and this photo shows who I have been working with today.
Here is a list of people I work with at the moment:

• PhD students: Sarah Masso (thesis under examination), Suzanne Hopf, Ben Pham, Helen Blake, Anna Cronin, one more to be announced soon, and one more applying for next year
• Postdoctoral scholars: Kate Crowe, Sarah Verdon, Audrey Wang
• Research assistants: Grear McAdam, Sarah Masso, Anna Cronin, Ben Pham, Phil Paschke
• Colleagues: Linda Harrison, Sarah McDonagh, Graham Daniel, Jennifer Sumsion, Fran Press, Loraine Fordham, Deb Clarke, Jane McCormack, Elise Baker + MANY more

Thank you Ninh

Ninh Dang Vu has been my research assistant from March - June this year. He has assisted with many tasks including data entry into SPSS and Excel, scanning, confidentializing, coding and organizing video, audio and data files, cataloguing journal articles and book chapters, and archiving my blog entries. Thank you Ninh!

Ben Pham, Ninh Dang Vu, and Sharynne

The privilege of having a voice

This week Ninh Dang Vu, my professorial research assistant, has completed a task that has taken a few months. He has printed and cataloged all of the journal articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings papers that I have written over the years. It has been wonderful to remember the colleagues I have collaborated from across the world with to create this body of work. It is a privilege to have a voice, to be able to share important information about the lives of people with communication difficulties, and to write about ways to enhance professional practice to enable people to live to their fullest potential.

Ninh Dang Vu with the folders containing my publications

Charles Sturt University Commencement Ceremony 2016

The Charles Sturt University Commencement Ceremony was held on Monday 22nd February to begin the academic year for 2016. This photo is of Ben Phạm my PhD student, Ninh Dang Vu my new professorial research assistant, and Rev. 'Oto Faiva who prayed the prayer for the staff and students at the commencement ceremony.

Ben Pham, Sharynne, Ninh Dang Vu, Rev. 'Oto Faiva

Sound Start Study: Stages 1, 2, and 3 are complete

Stages 1, 2, and 3 of the 3-year Sound Start Study are now complete. Stages 4, 5,  and 6 will be completed in the second half of the year. Kate Crowe and Sarah Masso have done an amazing job over the three years with 1214 children being screened in stage 1. Charlotte Howland and Felicity McKellar have supported the study as our competent research assistants.

Sarah Masso working on the data files with
our research assistant Felicity McKellar