Our Italian book has arrived

Our chapter, written in Italian has arrived - it is an honour to be in this important book that has been created for the 

Margetson, K., McLeod, S., & Blake, H. L. (2025). Gli Speech Sound Disorders nei bambini plurilingue [Speech sound disorders in multilingual children]. In S. Piazzalunga, R. Salvadorini, N. Pizzorni, F. Todaro, & A. Schindler (Eds.). Speech sound disorders: Evidenze scientifiche e buone prassi riabilitative [Scientific evidence and best rehabilitative practices] (pp. 415-432). Erickson University & Research. https://www.erickson.it/it/speech-sound-disorders

Assessing children's speech in Tasmania

I am in Tasmania this week to assess children's speech across the state as part of our research grant with Catholic Education Tasmania. It is wonderful to visit schools with Felicity Laurence and Lisa Johnson.

This is a really important study. One of the speech assistants aptly named this phase of the research the "CET speech census".

We currently have 785 consent forms and ICS data through Qualitrix. 

Some of the unique experiences from this week:

• Monday and Tuesday - Assessing 53 children across 4 different schools using the International Speech Screen (and some with the DEAP Screener) 
• A baby deer was shown to the children in the classroom we were visiting (very tiny and cute!)
• One child came three times to be assessed (he took his sticker off so we didn't remember he had been assessed before)
• Our treehouse speech sound poster (McLeod & Crowe, 2018) was on the speech room wall at one of the schools
• Tuesday - Negotiating the rain as we walked with children from their classrooms to the allocated research space
• Undertaking research in an art room 
• Enthusiastic children wanting it to be their turn :) 

Sharynne and Felicity ready for a day with Kinder children in Hobart

Sharynne  and Kate's treehouse poster was on the wall in the speech room at a school!

Sharynne and Lisa in the rain

Sharynne  and Lisa about to meet the next group of 4-year-olds

We also met with the private speech pathologists who assess CET children as part of the research on Wednesday morning 

Creating a new intervention - Context therapy

Today I shared my vision for a new intervention with Helen Blake and Lynn Williams. They then shared their insights and suggestions. We have begun to fill a gap in interventions for children with speech sound disorder by creating Context Therapy.

 

 

Tutorial article with International Expert Panel on Multilingual Children's Speech

The International Expert Panel on Multilingual Children's Speech has been working on a tutorial article addressing multilingual speech intervention for about a decade. There have been many papers published providing evidence for speech interventions for monolingual children in many languages; however, very few papers providing evidence for speech interventions for multilingual children.

We have been working on the tutorial paper at

• ICPLA in Greece
• IALP in Malta

and today have been creating checklists, tables, and content at the Children's Voices Centre with Prof Lynn Williams (visiting scholar), Helen L. Blake, and Sarah Verdon. We are getting close to having it ready to submit.

Helen, Sharynne  and Lynn creating the checklist

Sarah, Sharynne, Helen and Lynn

 

 

International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders (IALP) Congress in Malta - 24-28 August 2025

I am in Malta to attend the International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders Congress (IALP https://ialpglobal.org/). IALP is a Non-State Actor in Official Relations with the World Health Organization (WHO) and fosters professional knowledge and exchange of science and services across 55 affiliated societies in 35 countries around the world representing more than 300,000 members.  

During the congress I received the Honoured Member Award from IALP. Over the past 100 years (since 1924 when IALP began) the website lists only 22 Honoured Members and only one from the Southern Hemisphere (Brazil) (https://ialpglobal.org/individual-members-2/). 

The IALP Congress is attended by over 550 people from 58 countries offering 4 keynotes, over 90 sessions (with many papers per session), and 150 posters. One of the keynote speakers at IALP is Dr Antony Duttine, Technical Lead (Rehabilitation), World Health Organization, Switzerland "Telling the Story of Rehabilitation in a Changing World".

 Prof Wiebke Scharff Rethfeldt (IALP Vice President), Dr Antony Duttine (WHO), Prof Sharynne McLeod (CSU)

I have chaired a session and Dr Helen L. Blake and I have presented a paper titled "Unlocking global knowledge γνώση, 认识, إدراك, דַעַת, ज्ञान about children’s speech published by multilingual researchers".  We were honoured to receive this email on acceptance of our paper:

On behalf of the Scientific Committee of the 33rd World Congress of the IALP, we are delighted to inform you that your abstract, titled "Unlocking global knowledge about children’s speech published by multilingual researchers," has been accepted as an Oral Presentation. The Committee would like to commend you on your abstract, which scored among the highest of the abstracts submitted.

I have also attended the IALP Child Speech Committee meeting on Sunday.

IALP Child Speech Committee

The Congress is a fantastic time of networking, learning, and planning new research and opportunities. 

IALP Child Speech Committee meeting - Helen Grech (Malta), Krisztina Zjado (Hungary), Carol To (Hong Kong, SAR China), Joanne Cleland (UK), Sharynne McLeod (Australia)

IALP President, President Elect and Executive Committee Members

Sharynne, Egill (Iceland), Pam Enderby (UK), Carol Westby (USA)

Updating Children's Speech (2nd edition) - Effectiveness of orofacial myofunctional therapy for speech sound disorders in children: A systematic review

I was interested to read this paper as it informs what we write in the intervention chapters of the second edition of our Children's Speech book (McLeod & Baker)

Merkel-Walsh, R., Carey, D., Burnside, A., Grime, D., Turkich, D., Tseng, R. J., & Smart, S. (2025). Effectiveness of orofacial myofunctional therapy for speech sound disorders in children: A systematic review. International Journal of Orofacial Myology and Myofunctional Therapy, 51(1), 4. https://www.mdpi.com/2694-2526/51/1/4 

Here is the key takeaway "Findings from high quality studies showed no improvement to speech that could be directly attributed to OMT, and lower quality studies yielded mixed results. This review found no conclusive evidence supporting the use of OMT as a standalone treatment for the effective remediation of SSDs."

Here is the full abstract

Orofacial myofunctional therapy (OMT) is an intervention approach used to remediate orofacial myofunctional disorders (OMDs). OMDs are abnormal patterns involving the oral and orofacial musculature that can subsequently interfere with the normal growth, development, or function of orofacial structures, including speech production. Historically, articulation therapy is used to remediate speech sound disorders (SSDs). Currently, there is a dearth of literature on the use of OMT to treat non-developmental (organic) SSDs in children. The aim of this systematic review is to examine the effectiveness of OMT in treating organic SSDs in children and adolescents between 4 and 18 years of age. A search of five electronic databases (ProQuest, Scopus, Ovid, CINAHL, and Embase) was conducted, including backward (identifying and reviewing references from earlier studies from sources) and forward searching (reviewing newer studies that have cited a source). Only primary research including OMT with post-treatment outcome measures for speech production were included. Thirteen studies were reviewed, including a total of 397 participants between 4 and 17 years of age. A range of study designs, diagnoses, and intervention approaches were discussed. Studies yielded mixed results on the effectiveness of OMT to treat organic SSDs. OMT alone, and in combination with articulation therapy, was not found to be more effective than articulation therapy alone. The methodological quality of the studies ranged from limited to strong. Findings from high quality studies showed no improvement to speech that could be directly attributed to OMT, and lower quality studies yielded mixed results. This review found no conclusive evidence supporting the use of OMT as a standalone treatment for the effective remediation of SSDs. This is attributed to significant variability in speech outcomes, small sample sizes, limited comparison groups, diverse participant diagnoses, and inconsistent methodologies and treatment protocols, yielding mixed results. In addition, while the term OMT was used in the papers to designate treatment methodology, an analysis of the exercise descriptions revealed that some reported OMT exercises were non-speech oral motor exercises (NSOMEs) and oral motor therapies. Overall, many of the techniques utilized across studies did not provide speech-like movements in their therapeutic interventions based on their description. Finally, traditional articulation therapy, including speech drills to work on articulation disorders, was not included in many of the included studies. SLPs using OMT as a modality would typically combine this with articulation practice to treat the SSD. This study highlights the need for robust future studies including prospective cohort studies to compare OMT, combined OMT and articulation therapy, and articulation therapy alone to provide clearer guidance for future clinical practice.

Working on the second edition of Children's Speech

This evening Prof Elise Baker and I continued our work on the second edition of our book Children's Speech. This edition will be published by Oxford University Press. So much has happened since the first edition was published in 2017 - there is a lot to update.

Reviews for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association convention are complete

 I am on the Speech Sound Disorders in Children Committee for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association convention. Today I completed all of my reviews of the abstracts submitted for consideration to be presented at the conference in November.

Just published

van Doornik, A., Welbie, M., McLeod, S., Gerrits, E., & Terband, H. (2025). Speech and language therapists’ insights into severity of speech sound disorders in children for developing the speech sound disorder severity construct. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 60, e70022. https://doi.org/10.1111/1460-6984.70022 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1460-6984.70022

Congratulations Anniek!

Accepted journal article - Methods of Diagnosing Speech Sound Disorders in Multilingual Children

Our manuscript titled "Methods of Diagnosing Speech Sound Disorders in Multilingual Children" has just been accepted for publication in the "Changemaker" Special Forum for the Q1 journal Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. It came about because our session at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association convention in 2024 was one of the few that was awarded "changemaker" status - so we were invited to write up our submission. Thanks to Karla and Kate for leading this important paper. Here is the reference and abstract:

Washington, K. N., Crowe, K., McLeod, S., Margetson, K., Bazzocchi, N. B. M., Kokotek, L. E., van der Straten Waillet, P., Másdóttir, T., & Volhardt M. D. S., (2025, in press). Methods of diagnosing speech sound disorders in multilingual children. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools.

Purpose: Identification of speech sound disorder (SSD) in children who are multilingual is challenging for many speech-language pathologists (SLPs). This may be due to a lack of clinical resources to accurately identify SSD in multilingual children as easily as for monolingual children. The purpose of this paper is to describe features of multilingual speech acquisition, identify evidence-based resources for the differential diagnosis of SSD in speakers of under-studied language paradigms, and to demonstrate how culturally responsive practices can be achieved in different linguistic contexts.
Method: Examples of different approaches used to inform accurate diagnosis of SSD in 2- to 8-year-old multilingual children are described. The approaches used included: (a) considering adult speech models, (b) completing validation studies, and (c) streamlining evidence-informed techniques. These methods were applied across four different language paradigms in countries within the Global North and Global South (e.g., Jamaican Creole-English, Jamaica; Vietnamese-English, Australia; French and additional languages, Belgium; Icelandic-Polish, Iceland). The culturally responsive nature of approaches in each cultural/linguistic setting is highlighted as well as the broader applicability of these approaches.
Results: Findings related to dialect specific features, successful validation of tools to describe functional speech intelligibility and production accuracy, and the utility of different techniques applied in the diagnosis of SSD are outlined.
Conclusions: Culturally responsive methods offer a useful framework for guiding SLPs’ diagnostic practices. However, successful application of these practices is best operationalized at a local level in response to the linguistic, cultural, and geographic context.

Invitation - ASHA Speech Sound Disorders in Children Topic Committee

I have been invited to be part of the 2025 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Convention Planning Committee as a member of the Speech Sound Disorders in Children Topic Committee by Dr. Carol Koch and Dr. Amy Graham. The 2025 ASHA Convention will be held in Washington, DC. 

Here is what they wrote:

The ASHA Convention is the largest continuing education experience each year attended by over 15,000 clinicians, researchers, students, and related professionals. We are extending an invitation to you to be part of the 2025 ASHA Convention Planning Committee as a member of the Speech Sound Disorders in Children Topic Committee.  
 
Agreeing to serve in this volunteer role means that you will participate in the peer-review process for convention submissions from April 24th to May 13th, 2025. As part of this process, you will review and score approximately 10-12 narrative submissions for oral seminars, technical sessions, and poster presentations. Your review will help determine the inclusion of each submission in the 2025 ASHA Convention Program... This topic committee will also provide input on invited presentations/topics...

I have accepted their invitation. It is an honour to serve ASHA in this way. I have had the pleasure of serving on committees such as these since 2003.

Multilingual Children's Speech website - Updates and new pages

Today the CSU webteam (Alex Moore and Lindsey Ting) launched new pages and updates on the Multilingual Children's Speech website.

Dr Helen Blake and I have been updating information and creating new pages based on research undertaken by authors of The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World. There are completely new pages - and the other pages are being updated with hundreds of new entries! Here are some of the new pages that we have launched (more to come):

• Multilingual speech interventions - https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-interventions (this is a completely new page)
  
• Multilingual Speech Playlist - https://research.csu.edu.au/multilingual-speech-playlist

Dr Helen L. Blake and Sharynne working on the
Multilingual Children's Speech website

 

Special issue on Speech Sound Disorders in International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders

Over the past few years in my role on the Child Speech Committee of IALP I have initiated a discussion about terminology surrounding "speech sound disorders". This has resulted in a special issue on speech sound disorders that will soon be published in International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders. Here are the papers that have already been published in early view:

• Considerations of dialect on the identification of speech sound disorder in Vietnamese‐speaking children - Ben Phạm & Sharynne McLeod - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1460-6984.12992 
• Speech sound disorder or DLD (phonology)? Towards a consensus agreement on terminology - Helen Stringer, Joanne Cleland, Yvonne Wren, Rachel Rees, Pam Williams - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1460-6984.12989
• How differences in anatomy and physiology and other aetiology affect the way we label and describe speech in individuals with cleft lip and palate - Valerie J. Pereira &  Debbie Sell - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1460-6984.12946
  

DELAD workshop

https://www.clarin.eu/event/2022/delad-workshop-2022

 

Corpora of speech of individuals with communication disorders (CSD) are hard to obtain. They are costly to collect and difficult to share due to privacy issues. Moreover, they are often small in size and very specific in terms of communication impairments addressed. These factors make re-use a challenge on the one hand, and a necessity on the other. In the beginning, two of us (Ball & Müller) organised two workshops in Linköping, Sweden, in 2015 and 2016, in which available resources and issues related to accessibility were inventorised. These workshops resulted in the DELAD initiative (see http://delad.ruhosting.nl/).

 From these workshops it was concluded (1) that only a minority of existing CSD can be made accessible due to privacy constraints, and (2) that we now have limited knowhow to collect new CSD that can be shared according to FAIR principles, (3) that the CLARIN infrastructure is indispensable for this purpose. A third workshop was then organised in 2017 in Cork, Ireland with the support of CLARIN. Selected group of experts in communication disorders research and representatives from the CLARIN data centres were brought together to find solutions to issues such as design and implementation of a data repository, data type and formats, metadata categories and formats, IPR/ethics/consent forms, anonymization, as well as best practices and guidelines for data collection. The action plan resulting from the workshop included concrete initiatives related to the topics. 

 In January 2019 a fourth workshop was organised in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Key topics were legal and ethical aspects of collecting and hosting CSD and the establishment of relevant requirements for the infrastructure for securely sharing CSD. In January 2021 we organised a first online workshop and we will continue this in September this year. 

Here are the topics for our next DELAD workshop: Recent developments at ACE / DELAD for support of sharing CDS Sharing clinical data: Obtaining clinical data via hospitals vs Obtaining data outside clinical institutes from alternative organisations The impact of the Data Governance Act & Data Altruism Follow up on voice pseudonimisation And of course there will be plenty of time for researchers’ presentations on their data and options to share these. The workshop will be very interactive and participants are invited to actively participate in the discussions.

Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics - Three special issues focussing on multilingual children with speech sound disorders

Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics has just published three special issues focussing on multilingual children with speech sound disorders. "Individual profiles in phonological development across languages". Guest editors: Barbara May Bernhardt and Joseph Stemberger

• Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, Volume 36, Issue 7 https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/iclp20/36/7 
• Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, Volume 36, Issue 8 https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/iclp20/36/8 
• Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, Volume 36, Issue 9 https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/iclp20/36/9 

Here is the introduction:

Stemberger, J. P., & Bernhardt, B. M. (2022). Individual profiles in protracted phonological development across languages: Introduction to the special issue. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 36(7), 597-616. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699206.2022.2057871

 

Languages covered: Akan, Farsi, Greek, Japanese, Kuwaiti Arabic, Mandarin, French, Portuguese, Granada Spanish, Bulgarian, Polish, Slovenian, English, German

 

The Unserved: Addressing the needs of those with communication disorders

I have co-authored two chapters in the following book: The Unserved: Addressing the needs of those with communication disorders https://www.jr-press.co.uk/the-unserved.html edited by Sandra Levey and Pamela Enderby.

• Chapter 8 - Supporting the Communication of Underserved Children in Vietnam 
• Chapter 10 - Speech Sound Disorders in Underserved or Unserved Populations 

It is an honour to be published in this important book. Here is the description:

The International Association of Logopaedics and Phoniatrics (IALP), now called The International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders, was established in 1924. Its objective is to bring together professionals to promote research and clinical practice to support the needs of those with communication and swallowing disorders who lack health and other basic services. The Unserved, authored by members of the Association, celebrates 100 years of the IALP by presenting ideas to assist all those who work with children and adults who have difficulty in communicating or swallowing in order to improve services for unserved and underserved communities. It offers strategies to address disorders and conditions that affect many areas of everyday life and which are exacerbated by lack of adequate health, education and social services. Each chapter will be available as a free download after publication in summer 2022 on application to the Association. The print copy of the book will be published in October 2023 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the founding of IALP.

 

Drawing talking: Listening to children with speech sound disorders

The following manuscript has just been accepted for publication in a special issue: 1. McCormack, J., McLeod, S., Harrison, L. J. & Holliday, E. L. (2021, in press). Drawing talking: Listening to children with speech sound disorders. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools.

Here is the abstract:

Purpose. Listening to children using age-appropriate techniques supports evidence-based clinical decision-making. In this paper we test the Sound Effects Study Drawing Protocol, an arts-based technique, to support children with speech sound disorder (SSD) to express their views about talking.

Method. Participants were 124 Australian children aged 4- to 5-years in the Sound Effects Study. Their parents and teachers were concerned about their talking and they were assessed as having SSD on the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology. Drawings and children’s interpretations were elicited then analysed using the: (1) Who Am I? Draw-a-Person Scale and (2) Sound Effects Study Focal Points. 

Results. Drawings were developmentally typical for 4- to 5-year-olds. The six Sound Effects Study Focal Points were identified: Body parts and facial expressions, Talking and listening, Relationships and connection, Positivity, Negativity, and No talking. Participants portrayed talking and listening as an action requiring mouths and ears represented by symbols (letters, speech bubbles) or as an activity with a variety of people. Children typically portrayed themselves as happy when talking; however, some portrayed negativity and some chose not to draw talking. 

Conclusions. In keeping with Articles 12 and 13 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations, 2009), this research demonstrated that 4- to 5-year-old children with SSD can express their views about talking via drawing. Professionals may use drawings as a child-friendly technique to support children to express views to guide holistic, evidence-based, child-centred speech-language pathology practice.

Congratulations Hằng Nguyen and Vấn Phạm for submitting your Masters theses to Ho Chi Minh City Medicine and Pharmacy University

Congratulations to Hằng Nguyen and Vấn Phạm who submitted their Masters’ theses yesterday to Ho Chi Minh City Medicine and Pharmacy University, Viet Nam. I am so proud of them as they have worked very hard to undertake comprehensive research with 51 children with speech sound disorders in Vietnam, then write their thesis twice, once in Vietnamese and then in English! 

Vấn Phạm 

• Vietnamese thesis title: ĐẶC ĐIỂM ÂM LỜI NÓI CỦA TRẺ CÓ RỐI LOẠN ÂM LỜI NÓI Ở MIỀN BẮC VIỆT NAM 
• English title: SPEECH SOUND CHARACTERISTICS OF CHILDREN WITH SPEECH SOUND DISORDERS IN NORTHERN VIETNAM] 
• Supervisory team: Dr. Vo Nguyen Trung, Dr. Phạm Thi Ben, Pro. Dr. Sharynne McLeod 

Hằng Nguyen 

1. Vietnamese thesis title: TÍNH DỄ HIỂU LỜI NÓI CỦA TRẺ CÓ RỐI LOẠN ÂM LỜI NÓI Ở MIỀN BẮC VIỆT NAM 
2. English thesis title: SPEECH INTELLIGIBILITY OF CHILDREN WITH SPEECH SOUND DISORDERS IN NORTHERN VIETNAM 
3. Supervisory team: Dr. Do Van Dung, Dr. Phạm Thi Ben, Pro. Dr. Sharynne McLeod 

Best wishes for your oral defense and your thesis examination. 

Congratulations also to Dr Ben Phạm who was their primary supervisor. It was an honour to be co-supervisor.

Here are some blogposts of their research journey: https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/search/label/masters. Our first briefing was in January 2020 and our first meeting with the students was on February 10, 2020.

Supporting children with speech sound disorders during COVID-19 restrictions: Technological solutions

The following manuscript has just been accepted for publication 

McLeod, S., Ballard, K., Ahmed, B., McGill, N. & Brown, M. I. (2020, in press August). Supporting children with speech sound disorders during COVID-19 restrictions: Technological solutions. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups (SIG17: Global issues in Communication Sciences and Related Disorders).

Here is the abstract: 

“Children are the hidden victims of the COVID-19 pandemic” (UNICEF, 2020). Timely and effective speech intervention is important to reduce the impact on children’s school achievement, ability to make friends, mental health, future life opportunities, and government resources. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many Australian children did not receive sufficient speech-language pathology (SLP) services due to long waiting lists in the public health system. COVID-19 restrictions exacerbated this issue, as even children who were at the top of lengthy SLP waiting lists often received limited services, particularly in rural areas. To facilitate children receiving speech intervention remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic evidence from randomized controlled trials regarding three technological solutions are examined: (1) Sound Start Study (Phoneme Factory Sound Sorter), (2) Waiting for Speech Pathology website, and (3) Apraxia World. For the first two technological solutions, there were similar gains in speech production between the intervention and control groups; whereas, for the third solution the average magnitude of treatment effect was comparable to face-to-face SLP therapy. Automated therapy management systems may be able to accelerate speech development and support communication resilience to counteract the effects of the COVID-19 restrictions on children with speech sound disorders. Technology-based strategies may also provide a potential solution to the chronic shortage of SLP services in rural areas into the future.

 

Evaluating Children with Speech Sound Disorders in U.S. Public Schools

I am privileged to be collaborating with an international team to be writing a paper titled "Evaluating Children with Speech Sound Disorders in U.S. Public Schools: Considering Federal and State Laws, Guidance, and Research". The team members are Marie Ireland (Vice President SLP American Speech-Language-Hearing Association; Virginia Department of Education), Kelly Farquharson (Florida State University) and Kathryn Crowe (Charles Sturt University, Australia; University of Iceland, Iceland). This morning/last night depending on the time zone we had what we think will be the last online meeting before submission of our paper for peer review. As usual, the meeting was very productive and collaborative. The international conversations and clarifications have been valuable in making implicit assumptions and knowledge explicit.

Kelly (US), Sharynne (Australia), Marie (US), Kate (Poland)