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| Sharynne at radio 2BS |
There has been media interest surrounding the announcement regarding being one of "Nine Aussie Researchers are Planet's Best". I have been interviewed by
It has been a great opportunity to talk about children's communication during the week that children are beginning school.
I am busily writing and editing book chatpers this year. Here are a few that I have been working on in 2023 with my students and colleagues:
"Linguística clínica: Modelos, avaliação e intervenção" edited by Maria João Freitas, Marisa Lousada, Dina Caetano Alves, has just been published.
We were very honoured to be invited to write the first chapter:
McLeod, S., Verdon, S., & McGill, N. (2022). Assessment and intervention for children with speech sound disorders. In M. J. Freitas, M. Lousada, & D. C. Alves (Eds.), Linguística clínica: Modelos, avaliação e intervenção (pp. 3-22). Language Science Press. https://doi.org/10.5281.zenodo.7233213
I have been invited to write the Foreword and Appendix containing speech acquisition data for the PEEPS and today I received the page proofs:
Williams, A. L., & Stoel-Gammon, C. (2023). Profiles of Early Expressive Phonological Skills™ (PEEPS™). Paul H. Brookes Publishing.
Part of my foreword states:
To date, there have been few tools available to speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to assess young children’s emerging speech skills. The Profiles of Early Expressive Phonological Skills™ (PEEPS) has been designed for young children (18–36 months of age) who have small vocabularies and limited inventories of speech sounds. PEEPS™ is a unique evidence-based speech assessment and is a welcome addition to SLPs’ almost empty toolboxes for young children...The authors of PEEPS™ are eminent authorities on children’s speech and have undertaken extensive research that underpins their conceptualization and operationalization of this unique tool. They have spent more than 15 years developing PEEPS™, and the world has been waiting...
"Data assembled for The Australian's 2023 Research magazine show that papers by each of the nine researchers (in the past five years) which were published in the top journals in their respective fields have attracted more citations than any other researchers in that field globally" The Australian - Tim Dodd - Wednesday 25th January 2023 - page 21
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/
Top in the world: https://ausprint.meltwater.com/print_clip_previewer/424409250
Top in Australia: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/special-reports/sydney-unis-edward-holmes-made-the-critical-move-as-covid-hit/news-story/fb7a93a7aaf7e20cc93f517c6921cf79
Here is the CSU media release: https://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/childrens-speech-expert-left-speechless-after-being-recognised-as-world-leader-in-her-field
Two influential papers have been important in receiving this accolade
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Today I attended a webinar titled "The Convention On The Rights Of The Child: Hearing the Voices and Perspectives of Children and Young People" (https://dtp.org.au/training/crc-hearing-the-voices-and-perspectives-of-children-and-young-people/)
organised by UNSW and chaired by Faith Gordon from ANU (https://law.anu.edu.au/people/faith-gordon)
Speakers predominantly were young activitsts and many were involved in the Amnesty International Youth Advisory Group: https://www.amnesty.org.au/youth-in-our-movement/#
Here is the description of the event:
This is the 21st webinar in the series bringing together government officials, practitioners and academic experts to develop greater knowledge and understanding of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and the need and means for its implementation in Australia. The right of children to participate and be heard is enshrined in the CRC. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has repeatedly stated – including in its recommendations to the Australian Government – the need for the meaningful participation of children in all aspects of Australian policy and practice that impact their rights. The importance of climate change for the realisation of the rights of children and of future generations is a recurrent theme in the concerns of children in Australia and worldwide. This is recognised by the CRC Committee which is currently drafting a General Comment on the issue. But children have a wider range of concerns. These include the rights of Indigenous children, children with disabilities, and transgender children as well as the whole range of civil, cultural, economic, political, and social rights encompassed in the CRC. In this last webinar in the current series, and in partnership with UNICEF Australia, the voices of children and young people will be heard. We will hear their expectations, and their demands of the recently elected Federal Government, and from State and Territory authorities. Their voices should and must be taken into account in the preparation of Australia’s next report to the UN CRC Committee due in January 2024.
This year I am working with the following wonderful research higher degree students:
I also look forward to coauthoring papers based on graduated students' research.
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| Marie Ireland and her supervisors: Prof Sharynne McLeod and A/Prof Sarah Verdon |
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| Kate Margetson and her supervisors: Prof Sharynne McLeod and A/Prof Sarah Verdon |
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| Sarah Faulks and her supervisors: A/Prof Sarah Verdon, Prof Sharynne McLeod and Dr Van Tran |
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| Cathie Matthewsand her supervisors: Prof Julian Grant, Prof Sharynne McLeod, Dr Libbey Murray |
This week I have returned to work after a month's summer holidays. I am feeling very refreshed and have enjoyed catching up with the CSU kangaroos and my colleagues. This week also is the anniversary of 20 years of working with education colleagues and working from the same office on the CSU Bathurst campus. Finally, this week also marks my return to campus after almost 3 years due to COVID-19 restrictions and avoiding COVID-19 to undertake cancer treatments.
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| Prof Julian Grant and Sharynne on campus |
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| Kangaroos on campus |
I have been accepted as an Editorial Board Member (EBM) for the Speech section of the Q1 Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research https://pubs.asha.org/jslhr/edboard and my term has just begun with the arrival of an EBM Welcome Pack of information. The role of EBMs is here https://academy.pubs.asha.org/erc/editorial-board-members/.
I am an editorial board member on a number of other journals including:
Here are the links I provided
1. Multilingual Children’s Speech website (lots of free resources): https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech
2. Speech acquisition posters: https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-acquisition
3. Speech acquisition studies: https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-acq-studies
4. Intelligibility in Context Scale in 60+ languages: https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/ics
5. OPEN ACCESS - McLeod and Crowe (2018) Children's Consonant Acquisition in 27 Languages: A Cross-Linguistic Review https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100
6. OPEN ACCESS - Crowe and McLeod (2020) Children's English Consonant Acquisition in the United States: A Review https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2020_AJSLP-19-00168
7. Waiting for Speech Pathology https://wnswlhd.health.nsw.gov.au/our-services/speech-pathology/multilingual-resources/
8. New paper - Wren, Y., Pagnamenta, E., Orchard, F., Peters, T. J., Emond, A., Northstone, K., Miller, L. L., & Roulstone, S. (2023). Social, emotional and behavioural difficulties associated with persistent speech disorder in children: A prospective population study. JCPP Advances, e12126. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcv2.12126
The following manuscript has been accepted for publication
Morrow, A., Orr, N., Nash, K., Clague, L., Coates, H., Cross, C., Evans, J. R., Gunasekera, H., Harkus, S., Harrison, L. J., McLeod, S., McMahon, C., Neal, K., Salins, A. & Macniven, R. (2023, in press January). Parent perspectives of the relationships between ear health and children’s speech and language in the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children. Children, 10(1), 165. https://doi.org/10.3390/children10010165
Here is the abstract:
Health and wellbeing are holistic concepts that are perceived to be inseparable for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We examined relationships between parent-reported ear symptoms for 787 Indigenous children at two time points (age 2-3 years, age 4-5 years) and two parent-reported speech and language outcomes one year later (age 5-6 years). Most parents (80.2%) reported no concern about their child’s expressive language and (93.8%) receptive language. Binary logistic regression models examined ear health as a predictor of children’s expressive and receptive speech and language adjusting for sociodemographic and health covariates. For children without parent-reported ear symptoms there were lower odds of parental concern about expressive speech and language (aOR=0.45; 95% CI 0.21-0.99) and receptive language (aOR=0.24; 95% CI 0.09-0.62). Parents were less likely to have concerns about the child’s expressive speech and language if their child was female; lived in urban or regional areas; had excellent or very good global health; or had no disability when aged 2-5 years. Since parent-reported ear health and speech and language concerns were related, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children could benefit from culturally safe, strength-based, family-centred, integrated speech, language and ear health services.
This research was as the result of collaboration with Masters students and researchers at the HEARing Co-operative Research Centre including Prof Cath McMahon's team focusing on Indigenous people's ear health.
I have been invited to be a Peer Reviewer for the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) to review "Screening for Speech and Language Delay and Disorders in Children Age 5 Years or Younger". I frequently have used and quoted earlier versions of this document: https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/draft-update-summary/speech-language-delay-disorders-children-age-5-years-younger-screening
Here is the description of the role:
The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) is an independent, volunteer panel of national experts in prevention and evidence-based medicine. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) provides ongoing scientific, administrative, and dissemination support to the USPSTF. As part of this support, an AHRQ funded Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) produces evidence reports for use by the USPSTF. These evidence reports synthesize the evidence on a variety of health topics from studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The USPSTF uses the findings from the EPC evidence report to weigh the potential benefits and harms of the preventive service. The primary role of the Peer Reviewer is to provide unbiased input on the draft evidence report to help ensure an accurate and relevant report that will be widely used by policymakers, insurers, health systems, clinicians, and the public. Consistent with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) (formerly the Institute of Medicine (IOM)) recommendations on Standards for Systematic Reviews (1) to protect the independence of authors, Peer Reviewers do not provide analysis or contribute to the writing of the report. Once finalized, the evidence report may acknowledge by name the input and contributions of Peer Reviewers.
Scope of the review: https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/document/final-research-plan/speech-language-delay-disorders-children-age-5-years-younger-screening
Dr. Ellen S. Kester, President of Bilinguistics Speech and Language Services (www.bilinguistics.com) in Austin, TX has just written a blogpost about the impact of our research into children's speech development (https://bilinguistics.com/a-summary-of-current-speech-acquisition-data-across-27-languages/) before I present a keynote address at the Bilinguistics Conference in a few weeks' time. Here are a few quotes:
"The word “landmark” is an Olde English word originally used to describe the expansion of the boundaries of a kingdom. Nowadays, this word is typically reserved to describe changes in legislation which will have a massive impact on our lives. I think it’s fair to use this word to describe two speech acquisition data studies that came out right before the pandemic and that have huge implications for how we do our jobs as SLPs. New speech acquisition data published by Dr. Sharynne McLeod and Dr. Kate Crowe challenges some long-held beliefs about how and when sounds emerge. Results suggests that developmental norms are common across all languages, initial sounds develop as early as age 2, and the majority of sounds are mastered by age 5, including the American /r/."
"Dr. Sharynne McLeod is so easy to listen to and her humility is pervasive in everything she shares. If you are new to her work, there are some things we don’t want to skip past: Her work spans decades. She received funding and traveled extensively to the countries of many of the languages she studied. She purchased and explored oodles of evaluations tools in multiple languages to understand the normative data on which they are based. Her country is her lab: The people working with and for her are out in the rural communities, towns, and urban centers of Australia. And what is the result? Possibly the greatest data set accumulated on speech acquisition..."
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| https://bilinguistics.com/slp-conference-presentations/ |
We have just compiled the feedback from the ECV2022 survey.
A Google survey was sent to all registrants and 131 responded by 20 December 2022. Overall, 88.6% of respondents ranked the conference as 4-5/5 (1 = poor and 5 = excellent).
Respondents participated in all aspects of the conference: the online presentations, keynote speakers’ presentations, Children Draw Talking Global Online Gallery, yarning circles and downloaded the ECV2022 Conference Proceedings Book.
Respondents answered three open-ended questions:
“What did you like about ECV2022? What was good?”. There were 131 open-ended responses that were very positive. Many features of the conference were highlighted including that it was free, online, asynchronous, high quality content, multidisciplinary, multicultural, inclusion of children’s voices, opportunity for discussion (yarning circles).
“What areas could be improved? Please provide us feedback for future conferences”. While there were 96 responses, 24 (33%) of these indicated that “nothing” could be improved. Most of the responses related to the fact that it was a virtual/online conference, navigation, and more time for discussion.
“What learnings from ECV2022 can you apply in your practice?”.
Demographics of the survey respondents
The main profession/disciplines were: academics/researchers, early childhood education, education/teaching, speech-language pathology, students, psychology, social work, nursing
The countries of the respondents were: Armenia (2), Australia (62), Bangladesh (1), Bolivia (1), Canada (4), Croatia (2), Cyprus (1), Denmark (1), Fiji (2), Ghana (10), Hungary (1), Iceland (5), Indonesia (5), Iran (2), Iraq* (1), Ireland (2), Latvia (4), Luxembourg (2), Netherlands (1), New Zealand (2), Portugal (1), Rwanda (1), Saudi Arabia (2), Spain (2), United Kingdom (4), United States of America (7), Vietnam (1)
Recently the American Board of Child Language and Language Disorders have updated their map. I am the only non-American to be invited to join the board. Now their map includes me!
2022 has been a challenging - and fulfiling year. I have had a lot of health issues this year - and thankfully these now have all resolved. I am grateful to the wonderful team of students and colleagues who I work with. This week is about wrapping up 2022 before I go on a month's leave.
PhD and honours students
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| Holly McAlister, Sharynne, Suzanne Hopf |
Accomplishments during 2022
The following paper has been accepted for publication today:
McLeod, S. & Marshall, J. E. (in press). Communication for all and the Sustainable Development Goals. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology.
Purpose. Communication is central to the accomplishment of each of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and is a fundamental human right.
Method. This special issue of International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology (IJSLP, vol. 25, no. 1) was dedicated to communication, swallowing and the SDGs; particularly focussing on people with communication and/or swallowing disability and those who support them.
Result. This special issue of IJSLP demonstrates that successful communication is necessary for realisation of all 17 SDGs at both a global and an individual level and advances the international call for SDG 18: Communication for All. The 36 papers address all 17 goals, focussing on poverty, hunger, health, education, work, innovation, climate, cities, land, oceans, justice, and partnerships. Authors worked and undertook their research in Australia, Austria, Benin, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, China, Columbia, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Greece, Iceland, India, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Maldives, Mozambique, Nepal, New Zealand, Nigeria, State of Palestine, Peru, Philippines, Rwanda, Serbia, South Africa, Uganda, UK, USA, Vietnam.
Conclusion. Communication for all is essential for the achievement of the SDGs, “peace and prosperity for people and the planet” (United Nations, 2015a). The achievement of the SDGs is the role of all; including communication professionals, people with communication/swallowing disability, their families and communities.
Today I have been working on The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World. I had a great discussion with Dr. Chelsea Sommer from Miami, about a new chapter on Peruvian Spanish Speech Development. Then I worked with Dr. Mark Filmer from CSU who is going to copyedit the final chapters. Last week I worked with Dr. Helen Blake from UTS who is working with me on a project to translate the information within the chapters into online and accessible presentations. This work has been approved by Oxford University Press and is going to be a great addition to the resources about speech development across the world.
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| Chelsea Sommer (USA), Sharynne, and Mark Filmer (CSU) |
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| Helen Blake (UTS) and Sharynne |
I am delighted to report that today all papers have been accepted for the IJSLP special issue: Communication, Swallowing and the Sustainable Development Goals.
The 36 papers address all 17 goals, focussing on poverty, hunger, health, education, work, innovation, climate, cities, land, oceans, justice, and partnerships.
Authors worked and undertook their research in Australia, Austria, Benin, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, China, Columbia, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Greece, Iceland, India, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Maldives, Mozambique, Nepal, New Zealand, Nigeria, State of Palestine, Peru, Philippines, Rwanda, Serbia, South Africa, Uganda, UK, USA, Vietnam.
Thanks to
There are a few papers that still need page proofs finalised - then the special issue will be ready for publication as volume 25(1) in 2023.
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| Julie Marshall, Sharynne McLeod, Libby Cardell, Natalie Munro |
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| A blank slate again - all papers have been finalised :) |