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| Dr Marília Pereira (USP, Brazil), Prof Sharynne McLeod and Prof Yvonne Wren (UK) |
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| Photographs of students who have graduated from USP |
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| Visiting the Historical Museum of the Faculty of Medicine |
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| Fonoaudiologica Department |
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| Ultrasound helmet that I was involved in trialing at Queen Margaret University in the UK in 2006 |
Objective: To examine English-speaking speech-language pathologists’ (SLPs) transcription of consonants in Vietnamese words and identification of correct/incorrect productions of Vietnamese children’s speech.
Participants and Methods: Twenty English-speaking SLPs completed three tasks. Task 1: transcription of 22 English words using the International Phonetic Alphabet. Task 2: transcription of 47 words spoken by Vietnamese adults. Task 3: transcription of 94 Vietnamese words spoken by Vietnamese children and identification of correct/incorrect productions. Participants completed questionnaires exploring language proficiency, transcription skill, musicality, and confidence with multilingual clients.
Results: Task 1: participants demonstrated good accuracy transcribing English words (M = 97.2%). Task 2: An average of 52.9% consonants were transcribed correctly (89.4% when Vietnamese–English common transcription errors were considered). Common transcription errors included voicing of plosives, place, and syllable-final omission. Accuracy was higher on shared English and Vietnamese consonantal articulations (e.g., /b/ and /m/). Task 3: On average SLPs correctly identified accuracy of 73.8% of Vietnamese children’s productions and transcribed 69.2% consonants correctly (83.8% when Vietnamese–English common transcription errors were considered). Musicality was correlated with SLPs’ accuracy of transcription.
Conclusion: English-speaking SLPs have some skills transcribing Vietnamese adults and transcribing and identifying correct/incorrect productions of children’s speech. SLPs may use knowledge of common transcription errors to support understanding of their transcription of speech.
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| Autumn has arrived in Bathurst |
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| Carol Scheffner-Hammer and Sharynne |
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| Provost Brian Goldstein, La Salle University |
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| St Benilde Tower, La Salle University |
Collaboration with families and communities has been identified as one of six overarching principles to speech and language therapists’ (SLTs’) engagement in culturally competent practice with children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (Verdon et al., 2015a). The aim of this study was to describe SLTs’ collaboration with families and communities when engaging in practice to support the speech, language and communication of children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The study also aimed to identify the benefits and tensions related to such collaborations and to describe opportunities for SLTs to enhance their cultural competence through engagement with families and communities. The current study drew upon three data sources collected during the Embracing Diversity – Creating Equality study: field notes, narrative reflections by the researcher, and semi-structured interviews with SLTs. This study was conducted in 14 international sites across five countries (Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, Italy and the US) representing a diverse range of cultural and practice contexts. Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT, Engeström, 1987) was used as both an heuristic framework though which the study was conceptualised and as a tool for analysis to describe the varied nature of collaboration in different cultural contexts, the benefits of collaborating with families and communities, and the tensions that can arise when engaging in collaborative practice to support multilingual children’s learning and education. The results illuminate the importance of SLTs’ collaboration with families in order to gain an understanding of different cultural expectations and approaches to family involvement, and to build partnerships with families to work towards common goals. Collaboration with communities was highlighted as important for its ability to both facilitate understanding of children’s cultural context and build respectful, reciprocal relationships that can act as a bridge to overcome often unspoken or invisible tensions arising in cross-cultural practice. The findings of this study highlight opportunities for professionals involved in supporting children’s development to enhance the cultural competence of their practice through engagement with families and communities.
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| L-R: Tamara Cumming, Sandie Wong, Jane Payler, Jennifer Sumsion, Fran Press, Jane McCormack, Sarah Verdon, Sharynne McLeod, Angela Fenton (via video conference) |
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| Elissa Shand and Sharynne |
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| Professor Christine Dollaghan's keynote address |
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| Dinner at City Hall |
The speech-language pathology workforce strives to provide equitable, quality services to multilingual people. However, the extent to which this is being achieved is unknown. Participants in this study were 2,849 practicing members of Speech Pathology Australia and 4,386 children in the Birth cohort of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). Statistical and geospatial analyses were undertaken to identify the linguistic diversity and geographical distribution of Australian speech-language pathology services and Australian children. One fifth of services provided by Speech Pathology Australia members (20.2%) were available in a language other than English. Services were most commonly offered in Australian Sign Language (Auslan) (4.3%), French (3.1%), Italian (2.2%), Greek (1.6%), and Cantonese (1.5%). Among 4- to- 5-year-old children in the nationally representative LSAC, 15.3% were regularly spoken to in a language other than English. The most common languages spoken by the children were Arabic (1.5%), Italian (1.2%), Greek (0.9%), Spanish (0.9%), and Vietnamese (0.9%). Despite the relatively high number of multilingual SLP services, there was a mismatch between the location of multilingual services and the languages in which they were offered and the location of, and languages spoken by children. These findings highlight the need for speech-language pathologists, both multilingual and monolingual, to be culturally competent in providing equitable services to all clients regardless of the languages they speak.
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| Brian Goldstein and Sharynne (we are the co-chairs for the 2014 ASHA Cultural and Linguistic Diversity topic) |
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| Li-Rong Lilly Cheng and Sharynne (at Lilly's ASHA Honors party) |
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| Barbara Hodson and Sharynne |
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| Sharynne, Lynn Williams, Marc Fey, Ann Tyler |
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| Stephen Camarata and Sharynne (Stephen has just written the lead and final articles to the IJSLP scientific forum on autism) |
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| Sharynne and John Bernthal (happy because we have just finished writing an encyclopedia entry together) |
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| Staff and students who attended the presentation titled "Children's speech acquisition around the world" |
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| Sharynne with Professor Seyhun Topbaş at Dilkom |
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| Dr Esra Ertan and Prof Seyhun Topbaş in the Student Union Building |
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| View across Eskişehir from Anadolu University |
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| Group therapy room in the Dilkom clinic |
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| Turkish speech and language assessments created at Dilkom |
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| Chris Stone (President of Speech Pathology Australia) presenting the Elizabeth Usher Award |
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| Sharynne presenting the Elizabeth Usher Memorial lecture |