Week 3 of the Tasmanian Kinder Speech Census begins

 At the beginning of week 3 of our Tasmanian Kinder Speech Census we have:

• 32 schools
• 1,203 Kinder students
• 889 parent consent forms returned 
• LOTS of children who have assented to participating in our research and who have told us how they feel about their speech 
• LOTS of children assessed using the International Speech Screener (ISS). I personally have assessed 208 children so far :)
• 63 control children assessed with the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology (DEAP)

Another day face-to-face with Kinder students in CET schools

The rest of the week I have been assessing the students and undertaking data analysis via Zoom because I am no longer in Tasmania. 

CeTasSSD data collection has begun

The day has finally come that we have begun the research with 1,200 Kinder children in Tasmania. We are using the Australian English version of the International Speech Screener (ISS) and a question from the SPAA-C.  Ally Bennett, Emma Scanlon and I assessed 24 children across 2 schools on the first day (Monday) - which is 2% of the research population. The children and staff were excellent. We have a fun few weeks ahead. Thanks everyone.

Tuesday update - we now have signed consent from 733/1203 (60.93%) students. I assessed another 12 students. Ally and Emma assessed more. 

Thursday update - 166 children had been assessed

Helen Blake, Ally Barrett, Sharynne, Felicity Laurence, Lisa Johnson

Sharynne  with Emma Scanlon after transcription reliability checking

Emma and Ally online

 

CeTasSSD data planning and collection is underway

We have begun data collection for our CeTasSSD study! Tonight 715 entries have been recorded from the caregivers of 4- to 5-year-olds. While some entries will not be analysed (a few parents entered twice, some did not give consent to be involved in the research etc.), we are going to have a large number of children to help us learn about children's speech, and the best screening pathway for the state. Thank you to Kate Crowe, Felicity Laurence and Lisa Johnson who have overseen this online data collection phase from parents.

Today we also met to work through the practicalities of the data collection phase that begins next week to talk with children to listen to their production of speech sounds and learn from them about what they think about their speech. It was a really productive day of problem solving and getting things in place. Thanks Helen Blake, Ally Barrett, and Emma Scanlon - plus our special helper :)

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Speech pathology screening clinic at OAMS

Today, as part of our RHRI research, Sarah Bartlett, Emily-Jane Woodhead and I (3 speech pathologists) worked alongside Katrina and Tegan from OAMS to run a speech pathology screening clinic for Indigenous families to drop in and yarn about their children's speech, language and communication. We learned a lot and enjoyed yarning with the families and children.

Planning our speech pathology screening clinic for Indigenous families

This morning our research team met at the Orange Community Health Centre to plan our speech screening days in April that will be part of our research with Indigenous children. What an informative and useful planning session.

Sharynne, Susan Smith, Sarah Bartlett, Katrina, Emily-Jane Woodhead

Tasmanian research planning

It is such a pleasure to collaborate with the team from Catholic Education Tasmania. They are rigorous, responsive, and care for the children in Tasmania. We are planning for our research this year - and are getting closer to finalising the procedures and protocols.

Catholic Education Tasmania - Prevalence and screening pathway project

This week A/Prof Sarah Verdon, Dr Nicola Ivory, A/Prof Kate Crowe and I are working on the ethics, and finalisation of the Catholic Education Tasmania - Prevalence and screening pathway project. It is a privilege to work on this to set up a robust screening pathway for Tasmania.

Monday - Sarah, Nicola and Sharynne at CSU

Monday evening-Kate C (in Iceland) and Sharynne

Tuesday - Sarah, Nicola and Sharynne at CSU

Tuesday afternoon - Lisa, Felicity at CET, Sharynne, Sarah, Nicola at CSU

Thursday afternoon - Felicity, Lisa, Sharyne, Nicola, Udari

Research planning with Catholic Education Tasmania

We are getting closer to finalising our research plans to support Catholic Education Tasmania (CET) and their screening of children's speech. This is an extremely important project and we look forward to the next steps.

Colleagues from CET, Sharynne, Nicola, Sarah V

Preparing our new research with Tasmania

Today Dr Nicola Ivory and I spent time working on our invited research proposal with an education department in Tasmania. It is such an exciting project.

Early identification of communication delay by health and education professionals in rural Australia

Today Cathie Matthews and I had a productive day working on her Masters' thesis. We were working on a paper titled "Early identification of communication delay by health and education professionals in rural Australia". Her mixed methods study sought to assess the feasibility of the Early Communication Measures to identify communication risk in 48 2-year-old children by eight early childhood educators, eight child and family health nurses, and 48 caregivers.

While we were working we learned that her abstract was accepted for presentation at the upcoming Speech Pathology Australia National Conference in Perth in May 2024. Congratulations Cathie.

Early identification of communication delay by health and education professionals in rural Australia

Over the past two days Cathie Matthews has been in Bathurst working with me on her Masters research. She has undertaken important research about early identification of communication delay by health and education professionals in rural Australia. I have really enjoyed working with her to write up her data collected from early childhood educators, child and family health nurses, caregivers and 2-year-old children.

Presentation to the Western NSW Health Research Network

Congratulations to Cathie Matthews who presented her Masters' research to the Western NSW Health Research Network (WNRN) Symposium in Dubbo Monday 11 and Tuesday 12 September 2023 (https://whrnnetwork.wordpress.com/) 

The title of her presentation was "Advancing rural children’s communication, partnering with parents, early educators and child and family health nurses". 

Cathie Matthews is undertaking her Masters research at CSU supervised by Julian Grant, Sharynne McLeod, Libbey Murray. She is also undertaking a Health Education and Training Institute (HETI) Grant supervised by Kerith Duncanson (HETI) and  Georgina Luscombe from The University of Sydney.

Visiting the Orange Aboriginal Medical Service (OAMS)

Yesterday Cathie Matthews, Sarah Bartlett (online) and I had the opportunity to visit the Orange Aboriginal Medical Service to discuss indigenous children's speech,  language and hearing. We learned about the HEALS program and their use of the PLUM and HATS screening checklists

PLUM and HATS: https://plumandhats.nal.gov.au/

Hearing Australia: "The PLUM (Parent-evaluated Listening & Understanding Measure) has 10 questions and screens for listening problems. The HATS (Hearing and Talking Scale) has 5 questions and screens for communication problems."

We also discussed the ELIM program currently being undertaken as part of Cathie Matthews' research with 2-year-olds in Orange and Sarah Bartlett discussed the Hanen program. We are planning our next meeting with more of the OAMS team to discuss future collaborations.

Chloe Thompson, Sharynne McLeod, Anne-Marie McPham, Taylor Clark, Cathie Matthews

Ching, T. Y., Saetre-Turner, M., Harkus, S., Martin, L., Ward, M., Marnane, V., … & Kong, K. (2020). The Hearing and Talking Scale (HATS): Development and validation with young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in urban and remote settings in Australia. Deafness & Education International, 22(4), 305-324. 

Ching, T. Y., Hou, S., Seeto, M., Harkus, S., Ward, M., Marnane, V., & Kong, K. (2020). The Parents’ evaluation of Listening and Understanding Measure (PLUM): Development and normative data on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children below 6 years of age. Deafness & Education International, 22(4), 288-304.