Publication in Viet Nam about 300 children's speech acquisition

Lê Thị Thanh Xuân and TS Nguyễn Thị Ly Kha

While I was in Viet Nam in May, I had the opportunity spend many productive hours in discussion with Dr Ly Kha Nguyen (TS Nguyễn Thị Ly Kha) (with the assistance of Vietnamese-English interpreters and students including Lê Thị Thanh Xuân). Dr Ly Kha lectured the phonetics and linguistics classes to the speech therapy students in Ho Chi Minh City before I taught them about children with speech sound disorders. In my classes Dr Ly Kha and I would provide additional information to the students based on what each other had said (after waiting for the interpreter to translate). We also visited Children's Hospital Number 1 together to assess a 3-year-old boy using Dr Ly Kha's comprehensive articulation/phonology test she developed for the speech therapy students to use. Her test included items to assess consonants (in syllable initial and syllable final position), vowels, diphthongs, semivowels and tones. Dr Ly Kha had begun using the test to compile local Vietnamese normative information on speech acquisition - the first in the world! One finding of her research that differs from the work in Cantonese, is that Vietnamese children take a number of years to master tones.

I have just learned that her journal article is scheduled for publication in September in NGÔN NGỮ, the Vietnamese linguistics journal.

Her paper, titled "NỘI DUNG ĐÁNH GIÁ KHẢ NĂNG PHÁT ÂM ÂM TIẾT
CỦA TRẺ MẪU GIÁO" reports speech acquisition norms for over 300 children. Here is the abstract (published in English):
"ASSESSMENT CONTENT OF SYLLABLE PRONUNCIATION ABILITY
IN VIETNAMESE SPEAKING PRESCHOOLERS
Defining the assessment content of syllable pronunciation ability in preschoolers is an essential, pressing and necessary matter of speech pathologists in Vietnam. Nowadays there has been almost no research that recommends speech assessment tools to preschoolers in Vietnam, except for some materials used in experiments in screening diagnosis of speech sound disorders. Most of these materials have the assessment content of consonant pronunciation ability, not of tone or semi-vowel pronunciation ability as well as types of Vietnamese syllable structures. Some do not assess diphthong pronunciation ability and so on. According to the survey data of pronunciation ability of 298 normal children and 5 children that have difficulty in pronouncing words by using a new list, this paper adds one more datum to the hypothesis. It is that pronunciation ability of preschoolers can only be assessed when the assessment content correctly includes enough phonic components of Vietnamese syllabification and has no variation on specific features of Vietnamese syllables."

I appreciate her acknowledgment of our conversations/collaboration. For example, it was exciting for me to read my name in the first paragraph.
"1. Vấn đề đánh giá khả năng phát âm âm tiết của trẻ mẫu giáo
Ngôn ngữ, hoạt động ngôn ngữ trước hết và chủ yếu là ngôn ngữ bằng lời. Rối loạn âm thanh lời nói là một trong những khó khăn thường gặp nhất ở trẻ em. Trẻ bị mắc chứng rối loạn âm thanh lời nói thường dễ dẫn đến hệ quả gặp khó khăn trong học tập, nhất là khó khăn trong đọc và viết (Sharynne McLeod, 2011). Qua các nghiên cứu dịch tễ, các nhà âm ngữ trị liệu Hoa Kỳ cho biết rối loạn âm thanh lời nói ảnh hưởng đến 10% số trẻ em, trong đó 80% trường hợp nặng cần trị liệu (Gierut J.A., 1998; Boyse K., 2008). Phát hiện đúng để can thiệp sớm là công việc thiết yếu để có thể giúp những trẻ bị rối loạn âm thanh lời nói có cơ hội chỉnh âm một cách có hiệu quả."

Accessing international speech assessments

One of the aims of my Future Fellowship is to conduct a systematic review of children’s speech assessments that are available in languages other than English. I am reviewing formal (published) assessments/word lists. I am also working with Nicole Limbrick (CSU honours student co-supervised by Dr Jane McCormack) to review informal (unpublished) assessments in English and other languages. Nicole is also considering speech-language pathologists’ decision-making regarding conceptualization and operationalization of informal assessments. 

The first part of undertaking such a review is to purchase/obtain as many assessments as possible. Some of the challenges Sarah Verdon (my research assistant) I have encountered to date include:

•  The website is in a language other than English (of course); but even with the help of Google translate, information can be misunderstood. For example, I purchased the stimulus picture book, but not the score sheets/instruction manual, because I did not go to an affiliated web page.
• The tests can only be purchased after attending a training session in the publisher’s country
• The tests are commissioned/published by the government, so can only be accessed by government employees in that country
•  The tests are no longer available/accessible
• The tests are still in development, so are not yet available/accessible
• The tests do not have a website, so information about contacting the publisher, determining the cost etc is difficult
• The tests' websites do not enable purchase via credit card
• The tests' website lists the purchase price in one currency (e.g., euros), but charges in a different currency and uses a different company name on the credit card receipt (this makes it difficult to reconcile expenditure for the university finance department!)

**If anyone reading this blog could assist with information regarding purchasing/obtaining tests, I would love to hear from you!**

It is my aim to make an annotated list of assessments in languages other than English available to speech-language pathologists around the world. The appendix of the following chapter provides publication details for a number of tests and word lists. It is my aim to purchase/obtain each of these, and any others that may be out there!


McLeod, S. (2011, in press January). Multilingual speech assessment. In S. McLeod & B. A. Goldstein (Eds.) Multilingual aspects of speech sound disorders in children. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Language (dialect)	Name of children's speech (articulation/phonology) test
Arabic (Egyptian)	Mansoura Arabic Articulation Test (MAAT)
Arabic (Jordanian)	Amayreh Articulation Test
	Amayreh Articulation Test: Modified
Cantonese	Cantonese Phonological Assessment Guideline
	Cantonese Segmental Phonology Test
	Hong Kong Cantonese Articulation Test
Dutch	Fonologische Analyse van het Nederlands (FAN)
	Logo-art articulatieonderzoek
	Taaltoets Alle Kinderen
	Taaltoets Allochtone Kinderen
	Utrechts Articulatie Onderzoek
Finnish	Artikulaation arviointitehtäviä
	Artikulaatiotesti. Äänteenmukainen sanakuvatesti
	Fonologiatesti
French	Bilan phonologique
	Casse-tête d’Evaluation de la Phonologie (originally from Auger, 1994)
German	ADD – Aachener Dyslalie Diagnostik
	AVAK – Analyseverfahren zu Aussprachestörungen bei Kindern
	Bilderbuch zur Ausspracheprüfung bei Kindern
	Logo Ausspracheprüfung
	PAP – Pyrmonter Ausspracheprüfung
	Patholinguistische Diagnostik von Sprachentwicklungsstörungen
	PLAKSS – Psycholinguistische Analyse kindlicher Aussprachestörungen
	Ravensburger Stammler Prüfbogen
Greek	Anomilo 4. Screening Test for Speech and Language Disorders for 4-year-old Children
	Assessment of Phonetic and Phonological Development
Hungarian	GMP Diagnosztika [GMP Diagnostics]
Israeli Hebrew	Articulation and Naming Test
	Goralnik Language Screening Test
Japanese	Kōon Hattatsu Yosoku Kensa
	Kōon Kensahō (original reference)
	Kōon Kensahō
	Shinteiban Kotoba no Tesuto Ehon
Maltese	Maltese-English speech assessment for children (MESA)
Norwegian	Artikulasjonsprøve
	Artikulasjonsprøve for registrering av uttalefeil
	Norsk Fonemtest
	Norsk Logopedlags Språklydsprøve
Portuguese (Brazilian)	ABFW – Teste de Linguagem infantile: Nas áreas de fonologia, vocabulário, fluência e pragmática
	Avaliação Fonológica da criança (AFC)
Portuguese (European)	Teste Fonético-Fonológico-ALPE (TFF-ALPE)
Putonghua	Putonghua Segmental Phonology Test (PSPT)
	Picture-naming task
Samoan	Samoan Word List
Spanish	Assessment of Phonological Processes-Spanish
	Assessment of Spanish Phonology – Revised
	Austin Spanish Articulation Test
	Comprehensive Assessment of Spanish Articulation-Phonology (CASA-P)
	Contextual Probes of Articulation Competence: Spanish
	Hodson-Prezas Assessment of Spanish Phonological Patterns
	Southwest Spanish Articulation Test
	Spanish Articulation Measures
Swedish	SVANTE- Svenskt artikulations- och Nasalittets Test [Swedish Articulation and Nasality Test]
Turkish	Ankara artikülasyon testi [Ankara Articulation Test]
	Konuşma sorunlu çocukların sesbilgisel çözümleme yöntemi ile değerlendirilmesi [Assessment of Speech Disordered Children by Phonological Analysis]
	Eskişehir Konuşma Değerlendirme Test Takımı [Eskisehir Assessment of Speech Test]
	Türkçe Sesletim-Sesbilgisi Testi (SST) [Turkish Articulation and Phonology Test]

Excellence in Early Years Education (EYE) Collaborative Research Network Meeting

From 14-16 September the Excellence in Early Years Education (EYE) Collaborative Research Network met in Sydney at the Menzies Hotel for 2.5 days of intensive meetings to launch the CRN. Three universities are involved: Charles Sturt University (NSW), Queensland University of Technology (Queensland), and Monash University (Victoria). The 62 attendees included almost equal numbers of PhD students, early, mid and later career researchers; providing rich opportunities for mutual collaborations.

The speakers included Professor Sue Thomas, Professor Toni Downes, and Professor Jennifer Sumsion, who encouraged us to work together on researching the important and complex (wicked) problems in early years education. 

I was invited to lead a panel on the topic of Building a research career and networking. Later that evening I met with a group of early career researchers to discuss what this meant for them. We had a vigorous discussion about how to present the message and importance of their own research to any audience.

First Nations, Métis and Inuit People of Canada

While in Canada I have had the opportunity to learn about the First Nations, Inuit and Métis people of Canada. People I have learned from include:

• Prof May Bernhardt who teaches a course at the University of British Columbia about working with First Nations people,
• Heather Campbell who is undertaking research about bi-dialectal First Nations speakers, and
• Deanne Zeidler who has worked as a speech-language pathologist (SLP) with the First Nations people north of Vancouver for 17 years. Deanne has co-authored a family program called Talk, Learn, and Grow.  She has also uses the Moe the Mouse phonological awareness program. She is going to co-present a 1 hour session on her work at the American Speech-Language-Hearing convention in November.

One important thing that I have learned is that individualised assessment often is not appropriate when working with First Nations people. Talking with the community about their dreams for the future (for the whole community including its children) is the most important place to start. Standardized testing is not relevant, so many SLPs ask parents and teachers to talk to the children so that language samples can be elicited, then discussed together. Some have suggested that amongst First Nations people, disability is accommodated, so there is not as much urgency about speech and language difficulties as there is within English-speaking contexts.

Prof Joe Stemberger, Prof May Bernhardt, and Sharynne
with the totem poles from different nations in Stanley Park, Vancouver

Inukshuk at Whistler (a wonderfully scenic location;
however, inukshuks are normally found amongst Inuit people in the Artic Circle)

First Nations Cultural Centre at Whistler

There are 16 dialects of the Coast Salish family. Two dialects are Squamish and Lil'wat. At Whistler, the Squamish and Lilwat Nations have cooperated and open Cultural Centre providing artefacts and narrative about the two Nations. I found this quote to be very powerful in the context of maintaining these languages, and ensuring that First Nations children continue to learn them:
"Without our language there is no culture; without our culture there is no language" Johnny S. Abraham, Lil'wat Nation.

Deanne Zeidler and Sharynne near Lilooet (home of Lil'wat people)

Vancouver, BC, Canada

Prof May Bernhardt and Prof Joe Stemberger have hosted my stay in Vancouver. While here I have presented a seminar at the University of British Columbia (UBC) titled International speech acquisition: An Australian perspective.

L-R: Prof May Berhnardt, Daniel Berube, Heather Campbell, Sharynne, Sandy Taylor,
Dr Stefka Marinova-Todd, Dr Donald Derrick

May, Joe, Stefka, and the team have been working on a large cross-linguistic study of typical speech acquisition. They have developed a speech assessment, and scan analysis in the following languages:
Kuwaiti Arabic, Bulgarian, Canadian English, Manatoba French, German, Slovanian, Icelandic, Shanghai Mandarin, Japanese, Hungarian, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, and Punjabi.
They also have tested 30 typical children in most of these languages. Their assessments and analyses will be made available on the UBC website in the future.

Meeting Dr Stefka Marinova-Todd who co-authored the chapter
on Filipino in the International Guide to Speech Acquisition

Bidialectal Jamaican speech

While in Toronto, Dr Karla Washington and I have been preparing to undertake research into Jamaican children's speech acquisition. Jamaican children are bi-dialectal, speaking the Jamaican English (for school and other more formal occasions) and Jamaican Patois (for other occasions).

Karla has written a chapter titled: Translation to Practice: Typical Bidialectal Speech Acquisition in Jamaica  in the forthcoming McLeod & Goldstein book. She has written: "In Jamaica, Jamaican English and Jamaican Creole are the two polar co-occurring language varieties. Jamaican English is putatively the “Queen’s English”, the acrolect, and is used formally both in oral and written forms (Irvine, 2004). Alternately, Jamaican Creole the basilect, is considered an oral language resulting from multiple etymologies, including English, West African, and French languages (Cassidy, 1966) that is used informally (Irvine, 2004; 2008). Jamaicans are typically introduced to Jamaican Creole and Jamaican English from birth (Irvine, 2004; Meade, 2001), making them simultaneous language learners. Jamaican children therefore enter the school system speaking both Jamaican English and Jamaican Creole; however, the language of instruction in schools is Jamaican English (Brown-Blake, 2008; Irvine, 2004). Jamaican Creole phonology consists of 33 different phonemes, comprising 21 consonants and 12 vowels (Devonish & Harry, 2004; Harry, 2006)..."

As part of the preparation, I have enjoyed eating Jamaican food, including ackee and salted codfish, the Jamaican national dish.

Top L- Lower R: Dumplings, ackee and salted codfish, plantains, boiled green bananas,

Text message written in Jamaican Creole



Learning in London and Toronto, ON, Canada

Dr Karla Washington has hosted my visit to Ontario, Canada.
During my stay we have visited the University of Western Ontario (in London, ON), and have met Prof Geneese Warr-Leeper, who developed TykeTalk and has published a book for parents in English and French titled: Helping Kids Discover and Develop Language.

Dr Karla Washington and Prof Geneese Warr-Leeper

Dr Karla Washington and Sharynne at University of Western Ontario

I also presented an invited seminar at Bloorview Research Institute in Toronto titled: Children's speech: Prevalence, risk and impact of speech sound disorder. While there, I met with Prof. Nancy Thomas-Stonell, who has created the FOCUS (Focus on Children under Six), an outcome measure based on the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health.

Sharynne, Prof Nancy Thomas-Stonell, and Dr Karla Washington

International Association for the Study of Child Language

From 19-23 July I attended the 12th meeting of the International Association for the Study of Child Language (IASCL) held at the Université du Québec à Montréal in Canada. The program included 63 thematic symposia (250 papers) and 343 posters. I had the opportunity to hear papers from many experts including
Fred Genesee: Myths and misunderstandings about dual language acquisition in young learners
Simon E. Fisher: Building bridges between genes, brains and language
Deb Roy: A study of language development in context (see here for YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwgkT34g61w)

I presented a poster titled: Linguistic diversity in a nationally representative sample of Australian 4- to 5-year-old children and their parents.

I also enjoyed meeting authors of chapters from the International Guide to Speech Acquisition (McLeod, 2007) on French and Finnish. Previously I had only corresponded with them via email. It has been exciting to see the additional research that has been undertaken since 2007 in French and Finnish regarding children's speech acquisition.

Tuula Savinainen-Makkonen, Sharynne, and Sari Kunnari

Sharynne and Prof Yvan Rose - Memorial University of Newfoundland

Listening to children and young people with speech, language and communication needs

While in Montreal, Prof Sue Roulstone (from the University of the West of England) and I have finished and submitted a book titled: Listening to children and young people with speech, language and communication needs. This book began last year, when I was visiting Bristol.

The book profiles the voice of the children and young people with speech, language and communication needs. Throughout the book, many examples of children’s opinions and thoughts are included, delivered via a range of frontiers, including art, photographs, and quotes.

Fifty people have contributed chapters to this book providing insights from speech and language therapists, social workers, psychologists, teachers, researchers, advocates, parents, and young people with speech, language and communication needs.

*Part I provides views about the importance of listening to children written by advocates for children with speech, language and communication needs.

*Part II unpacks the complexities and issues, providing theoretical perspectives about the listening process.
*Part III contains real life examples of listening to children and young people through structured reports of research and clinical projects. One of the aims of this part is to document a range of creative techniques and solutions for listening to children and young people. Additionally, Part III includes key messages from children and young people with speech, language and communication needs about their lives, and their insights into how services can be improved to better accommodate their needs.

It is our hope that book will provide direction for health, education, and social care services to enhance the lives of children and young people with speech, language and communication needs.

Prof Sue Roulstone and Sharynne with a sample version of their new book

Multilingual Montréal (Quebec, Canada)

Montréalers have impressed me with the ease that they switch between French and English. The 2006 census

indicated 59.9% of the population speaks French at home while 19.4% speaks English; however, many Montréalers are bilingual French-English.

In Quebec, if information is provided in a public place, then the English text should be 40% of the size of the French text.

While in Montréal I visited Isabelle Simard’s multilingual speech-language pathology clinic where she provides assessments and interventions in many languages.

I have also visited and talked with people from the two universities in Montréal that educates speech-language pathologists. McGill is an English university and the University of Montréal is a French university.

Isabelle Simard and Sharynne at Université de Montréal

I enjoyed meeting with Prof. Susan Rvachew and Prof. Elin Thordadottir of McGill University. We discussed multilingual perception and production of speech and language, and ideas for assessments. We also discussed Susan’s new book: Developmental Phonological Disorders: Foundations of Clinical Practice.

Prof Elin Thordardottir, Prof Susan Rvachew, Sharynne



AusTalk: A national treasure

The aim of AusTalk is to create a corpus of  high quality audio/videos of the speech of 1000 Australian adults. Each adult is recorded 3 times for an hour each time, resulting in a rich source of content that can be used in many applications, including forensics, computer science, hearing aid/cochlear implant technology, and speech pathology.
AusTalk is funded by the Australian Research Council and I have been honoured to oversee the Bathurst (Charles Sturt University) site of data collection. Rebekah Lockart is the extremely capable research assistant on the project. Bathurst is one of only 4 rural sites, the others are Geelong, Armidale, and Alice Springs. The University of Western Sydney is overseeing AusTalk.

For more information about AusTalk see: http://www.austalk.edu.au/
For the CSU media release see: here




Rebekah with the AusTalk equipment (black box)

  



Recording Australian speech

 

Developing quantitative research skills through longitudinal datasets

Researchers from Charles Sturt University, Queensland University of Technology and Monash University met in Bathurst for a 2-day research workshop titled "Children's development, learning and well-being in the early years: Developing quantitative research skills through longitudinal datasets". The workshop and presentations were lead by A. Prof Linda Harrison and the primary focus was on the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. We learned about FLoSsE: the Australian Government's Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA's) Longitudinal Surveys Electronic (FLoSse) Research archive that compiles research from:

• Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), (Growing Up in Australia)
• Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC), (Footprints in Time)
• Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA)(Living in Australia)

During the workshop I was author/coauthor on the following presentations:

• Linguistic diversity in a nationally representative sample of Australian 4- to 5-year-old children
• School outcomes for children identified with communication impairment in early childhood

Supporting monolingual speech pathologists' assessment of multilingual children

During 2011 I am very fortunate to be working with Rebekah Lockart, a masters student in the speech pathology program at Macquarie University. Her thesis is titled: "Factors that enhance Australian speech-language pathologists’ assessment of the speech of Cantonese-speaking children".
Rebekah and I will be working on the protocols and procedures for her research over the next few weeks. We are grateful for advice about Cantonese from Dr Carol To (Hong Kong University) and Dr Mun Yee Lai (Charles Sturt University).


Dr Mun Yee Lai, Rebekah Lockart, and Sharynne



Speech Pathology Australia National Conference in Darwin

This year's Speech Pathology Australia National Conference was held in Darwin from 26-29 June.
With the conference being held in Darwin, there were opportunities to learn from Aboriginal and Torres Straight Island people.

Keynote speakers at the conference were:

• Dr Anne Lowell and her Yolngu colleagues Elaine Maypilama, Phyllis Batumbil and Helen Nyomba from the remote Indigenous Arnhem Land Community of Galiwin’ku. Their powerful presentation was titled: Closing the communication gap in Indigenous health: Working together to improve practice and outcomes
• Prof Deborah Theodoros: A new era in speech pathology practice: Innovation and diversification
• Prof Tim Sharp: Happiness at work...and beyond: Applying the principles of positive psychology!

My colleagues and I presented the following papers:

• Williams, C. J. & McLeod, S. Working with children from multilingual backgrounds: Knowledge and practices of Australian speech pathologists.
• McCormack, J., McLeod, S., McAllister, L., & Harrison, L. J. Living with speech impairment: Reflections on life from early childhood to adulthood.
• McCormack, J., Harrison, L. J., McLeod, S., & McAllister, L. The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children: School outcomes for children identified with communication impairment in early childhood.

While at the conference, I enjoyed learning from Australia's speech pathology community, and also from people working as speech pathologists in New Zealand, UK, Vietnam, Uganda, and Senegal.
Also at the conference, I was busy in my role as the editor of Speech Pathology Australia's journal, International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology (see previous blog entry for exciting news!)

More information about the conference is here

Dr Caroline Bowen (centre) who was awarded life membership
of Speech Pathology Australia with Jane McCormack  and Sharynne

Sharynne, Dr Sally Hewat (U of Newcastle), Dr Diane Jacobs (LaTrobe University),
and Dr Emma McLaughlin (LaTrobe University)

Sharynne in Darwin with Dr Clare McCann and Dr Dean Sutherland
from University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology's first ISI impact factor

Today the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology received it's first ISI Web of Knowledge Journal Citation Index impact factor. Our impact factor is 1.12 and it has been ranked 28th (of 62) in the world for all rehabilitation journals.
Speech Pathology Australia, informahealthcare and the editorial board have been working on this for 6+ years, so this ranking is a great achievement.
Thank you to EVERYONE who has supported the journal in so many ways (as authors, readers, citers, reviewers, board members etc).


Professor Fiona Gibbon (Ireland) described how the day progressed as the news was learned by the speech pathology community: "it was like a slow-motion Mexican wave of congratulatory emails as people turned on their computers around the world!"

L-R Prof Deborah Theodoros, Prof Sharynne McLeod (current editor),
Alla Kaploun (informa), Prof Beth Armstrong (previous editor)