Friends at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention, Boston, MA, USA

One of the best things about traveling half way across the world to attend the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention in Boston is to see friends and colleagues from across the world. Here are a few

Chelsea Sommer (US), Brian Goldstein (US), Sharynne

Sharynne, Kate Margetson, Brandon, Leah Fabiano, Brian Goldstein (US)

Sharynne, Haydée Fiszbein Wertzner (Brazil), Jon Preston (US), Françoise Brosseau Lapré (US), Aravind Namasivayam (Canada)

Sharynne, Dalia (Saudi Arabia)

Patricia (USA), Sharynne

ASHA Special Interest Group 17 executive: Global issues

Giang Pham (US/Vietnam), Sharynne

Lemmietta McNeilly

ASHA Convention Changemaker Session: One of 117 selected from 3400+ submissions

What an honour for three people from CSU to have received this accolade (Kathryn Crowe, Sharynne McLeod, Kate Margetson). 

Surprise, and congratulations! We are delighted to inform you that your 2023 ASHA Convention presentation titled, "Methods for Accurate Differential Diagnosis of Speech Sound Disorder in Multilingual Children", has been designated as an ASHA Convention Changemaker Session. This special designation was developed specifically for the 2023 ASHA Convention, in keeping with our theme of Igniting Innovation, and specifically recognizes presentations that are exceptional and promote or demonstrate innovation in one the following ways: • Potential to make an important or significant positive change at the patient, systemic, or discipline level. • Strong evidence that the work being presented has had a significant impact, or has the potential to provoke important change, at the individual, systemic, or discipline level. • Transformative research or clinical work that has dramatically changed the practices or future research (e.g., Contributes to new best practices). There were many sessions that embraced the theme and were quite strong, highlighting great examples of innovation in practice. Your submission, however, is one of just 117 specifically selected out of more than 3400 submissions. Each Topic Committee had the choice of recommending only three top-rated sessions that merited this special Changemaker recognition, across any session format, any member or affiliation type, and across both submission categories of professional education and research. Your presentation was assessed as exceptional and worthy of this special recognition.

ASHA Convention Changemaker Sessions will be highlighted in the Program Planner/Mobile App, the ASHA Convention Virtual Extra, and/or in the printed Pocket Planner. Additionally, we will create a special recognition certificate that will be emailed to you in September.

Please highlight this achievement on your CV by listing it under awards as a selected Changemaker Session, 2023 ASHA Convention. Should you have any questions, please email papers@asha.org. Congratulations again, thank you for your work that challenges us, inspires us, and demonstrates the breadth and depth of innovation in our professions. 

Sincerely, Kelly Farquharson 2023 ASHA Convention Co-Chair for Speech-Language Pathology

Jennifer Simpson 2023 ASHA Convention Co-Chair for Audiology

Changemaker session presentation details: 

• Topic Area: Speech Sound Disorders in Children with Normal Hearing 
• Title: Methods for Accurate Differential Diagnosis of Speech Sound Disorder in Multilingual Children 
• Session Format: 1-Hour Seminar (In-Person) 
• Author(s): Karla Washington, Kathryn Crowe, Sharynne McLeod, Kate Margetson, Leslie Kokotek, Pauline van der Straten Waillet, Thora Masdottir, Marc Volhardt 
• Session Code: 1972 
• Day: Saturday, November 18, 2023 
• Time: 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM 

ASHA celebrations

While in Boston at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association convention I have had the opportunity to celebrate the awards of my colleagues: 

Honors of the Association 

• Lynn Williams, PhD, CCC-SLP, BCS-CL, FASHA, FNAP 
• Catherine J. Crowley, JD, PhD, CCC-SLP, BCS-CL 
• Karla K. McGregor, PhD, CCC-SLP, BCS-CL 

Fellowship of the Association 

• Kelly Farquharson, PhD, CCC-SLP, BCS-CL
• Anna Miles, PhD - New Zealand
  

Anna Miles became the second (ever) ASHA Fellow from New Zealand

I was honoured to be a guest of Lynn Williams at the awards ceremony and give a speech at her celebration following the ceremony. Lynn and I have worked together for 20 years, since we chaired an ASHA convention committee in 2003. Lynn is currently the National Academies of Practice Vice President for Professional Development and Interim Dean and Professor for the College of Clinical and Rehabilitative Health Sciences, East Tennessee State University.

Here is an excerpt from my letter of recommendation for Lynn to receive ASHA Honors that I read at the celebration party: 

The decision to award Dr. Williams ASHA Honors will be very easy as she is unrivalled in her contribution, capacity, and competence across every aspect of our field: national service (leadership, advocacy), research, teaching, and clinical practice. Words I would use to describe Dr. Williams are that she is genuine, rigorous, knowledgeable, innovative, ethical, practical, collegial, consultative, encouraging, compassionate, respectful and world-leading. I completely concur that her “contributions have been of such excellence that they have enhanced or altered the course of the professions” across the world.

The book that Lynn, Rebecca and I edited was in the exhibit hall listed as a "best seller"!

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention, Boston, MA, USA

It is exciting to be in Boston for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention. Our team is presenting a number of papers and seminars, including:

1. McLeod, S., Blake, H. L., Crowe, K., Louw, B., Farquharson, K., Bérubé, D., Goldstein, B., Babatsouli, E., Kakia Petinou, Zajdó, K., Washington, K. N., Auza, A, Buntová, D., Oravkinová, Z., & Masdottir, T. (2023, November). Children’s speech development in 70+ languages and dialects. [1-hour oral presentation]. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention, Boston, MA, USA. 

2. Ireland, M., Verdon, S., & McLeod, S. (2023, November). Team decision making for SLPs in schools: Tensions and the impact of rules. [Oral presentation]. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention, Boston, MA, USA. 

3. McLeod, S. & Marshall, J. E. (2023, November). Speech-language pathologists and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. [Oral presentation]. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention, Boston, MA USA. 

4. Washington, K., Crowe, K., McLeod, S., Margetson, K., Kokotek, L., van der Straten Waillet, P., Masdottir, T., Volhardt, M. (2023, November). Methods for accurate differential diagnosis of speech sound disorder in multilingual children. [1-hour oral presentation]. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention, Boston, MA USA.  

 The final attendance numbers are: 15,904 (1,458 – Virtual Only 14,446 – In Person)

 

Once Upon A Time Foundation meeting in Fort Worth, TX

Today I attended a meeting at the Once Upon A Time Foundation Fort Worth, TX to discuss our grant to consider children's perspectives of speech intervention for childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). It was a very collegial meeting to ensure high quality research is undertaken as part of their large-scale CAS intervention research agenda.

Hello USA

I have just arrived in USA for meetings and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention. American culture is so familiar due to the movies, TV and other images that are broadcast around the world. Here are a few that I think are quintessentially American:

Pumpkin pie with loads of cream

Cowboy hat in the middle of town in Texas

Longhorn cows and cowboys/cowgirls in Texas

Congratulations Caitlin on the submission of your DClinDent thesis

Congratulations to Caitlin Hurley who is submitting her thesis titled "The impact of maxillary incisor extractions on children's speech" for her Doctorate of Clinical Dentistry (Paediatric Dentistry)(DClinDent) at the University of Western Australia tomorrow. She will be sharing her work with the following examiners: Prof Nicola Innes (Cardiff), Prof Nigel King (Hong Kong Kong, SAR China), and AProf John Winters (Perth Childrens Hospital, WA). It has a pleasure to be her associate supervisor and to support her important research. 

Communication and sensory loss: Global perspectives

Congratulations to Dr Kate Crowe who has just submitted her edited book titled "Communication and sensory loss: Global perspectives" to Routledge. She wrote "The book has 31 different author, authors with lived experience of hearing and/or vision differences, and authors who work in Asian, Oceanic, North American, South American, European, and African contexts". What a remarkable achievement! Kate has invited me to write the Foreword and I have been enjoying reading the chapters in order to complete this task. Congratulations again Kate!

Dr Kate Crowe submitting her book in Iceland on 1 Nov 2023

ARC Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) scheme

Today I met with colleagues across Australia to discuss the potential development of an application for the ARC Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) scheme.

The LIEF scheme enables higher education researchers to participate in cooperative initiatives so that expensive infrastructure, equipment and facilities can be shared between higher education organisations and also with industry. The scheme also fosters collaboration through its support of the cooperative use of international or national research facilities. The LIEF scheme objectives are to: support excellent basic and applied research and research training through the acquisition of research equipment and infrastructure and access to national and international research facilities; and encourage Eligible Organisations to develop collaborative arrangements with other Eligible Organisations and/or Partner Organisations for the acquisition and use of research equipment and infrastructure or access to national and international facilities. The intended outcomes of the LIEF scheme are: enhanced scale and focus of research in areas of existing and/or emerging research strength; and research infrastructure for the broader research community. (from ARC website)

Once Upon A Time grant and meeting

Next week I head to Fort Worth, TX, USA for a meeting with the Once Upon A Time Foundation to discuss our grant to consider children's perspectives of speech intervention. Today I had a meeting with Dr Anna Cronin and A/Prof Jane McCormack from ACU who are leading the grant. It's an exciting project.

Workshop on community language corpora in Australia

Workshop on community language corpora in Australia 

• https://www.ldaca.edu.au/events/events/
• When: 9-10 November 2023 
• Where: Engma Room (3.165 HC Coombs Building, ANU) 
• Organisers: Li Nguyen & Catherine Travis 

Our team is presenting the following paper: 

• Vietnamese language use and maintenance in Australia 
• Authors: Van Tran, Sharynne McLeod, Sarah Verdon, Kate Margetson 
• Time: 12:35-1pm 

Here is a description of the event: 

Australia is a highly multilingual and multicultural society, with more than 490 languages coming from around 300 ancestries and cultural traditions (ABS, 2021, 2022). For decades, the language and cultural maintenance of various immigrant groups have been under investigation by many scholars, not only in linguistics but also in history, sociology, anthropology, and other disciplines. This work has amassed a large body of data reflecting the languages of these communities, providing information about how Australia’s immigration history has contributed to the country today. The purpose of this workshop is to bring together scholars working with language corpora from across different disciplines. The workshop is being run as part of the Language Data Commons of Australia (LDaCA), which is working to build national research infrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences, facilitating sustainable access to and controlled use of digital language corpora for linguists, scholars across the Humanities and Social Sciences, and non-academics. The workshop will consist of presentations on language data collected from Australian immigrant communities for different research purposes, and will close with a panel discussion on needs and challenges around managing and archiving community language data in a way that is ethical, legal and culturally sensitive, and how LDaCA can help support that.

Australia's field leader: Audiology, Speech & Language Pathology

Today The Australian published the Research 2024 magazine. I was named Australia's Research Field Leader for Audiology, Speech & Language Pathology (p. 23) 

• Field leader: Sharynne McLeod, CSU 
• Lead institution: Uni of Queensland

https://todayspaper.theaustralian.com.au/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=&edid=e45ac3b6-47df-44cc-b1ab-939725e848e8&pnum=1 

Additionally, Audiology, Speech & Language Pathology was named in the list of "Australia's strongest 15 fields relative to the world" (p. 16) 

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/special-reports/research-magazine/field-by-field-how-competitive-is-australias-research/news-story/132095d453d6ce483b6fd4c1d4d521e3

Over the years, The Australian Newspaper has named me Australia’s Research Field Leader in Audiology, Speech and Language Pathology (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2024) and Best in the World based on the “quality, volume and impact” of research in the field (2019, 2023).  

One other researcher at Charles Sturt University was named as well: Clive Hamilton was named as "Living legends: Academics in the spotlight. These are the Australian academics, researchers and scholars who loom largest in public discourse world-wide" (p. 20). Congratulations Clive!

 

ASHA Special Collection: Developmental Milestones

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association has just launched a new developmental milestones collection. https://www.asha.org/public/developmental-milestones/communication-milestones/

It is pleasing to see that the data they have used to describe children's speech development (https://pubs.asha.org/special-collections/developmental-milestones) is from our paper:

Crowe, K., & McLeod, S. (2020). Children's English consonant acquisition in the United States: A review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 29(4), 2155–2169. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_AJSLP-19-00168

Charles Sturt University Research Futures video interviews

I was honoured to be interviewed for Research Futures. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joK0h40Z6bY

Research Futures is a series of video interviews with Charles Sturt's Vice-Chancellor, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) and senior academics by Virginia Haussegger AM, an award-winning television journalist, writer and commentator. Research is, and will always be, vital to Charles Sturt's social purpose - to generate world-class applied research to help foster prosperous communities across New South Wales. Charles Sturt aims to be the leading regional university known for solving real-world problems and enhancing the quality of life of regional Australians. The Research Futures Showcase is a tightly woven showcase of vignettes taken from interviews conducted by Virginia where researchers discuss their big research ideas, how they challenge orthodoxy and what research outcomes will or have been achieved. Research Futures shows the breadth and importance of research being conducted at Charles Sturt.

• Professor Renée Leon, Vice-Chancellor // https://youtu.be/pOwCuUrkbsY 
• Professor Mark Evans, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) // https://youtu.be/Hg899ZiP8Yo 
• Professor Sharynne McLeod // https://youtu.be/KPt4IU3zLE0 
• Professor Alan Cooper // https://youtu.be/44DYFiG10IY 
• Professor Allen Ross // https://youtu.be/uq0NKkmevRM 
• Professor Ganna Pogrebna // https://youtu.be/igFsPjKrZjE 
• Professor Jane Quinn // https://youtu.be/MvtzBvaZkGk 
• Professor Lee Baumgartner // https://youtu.be/MwPi0z2mElE 
• Professor Leslie Weston // https://youtu.be/_8Hb2lIAF74
• Nick Pagett // https://youtu.be/TsQkxcR29-I
• Professor Sarah O’Shea // https://youtu.be/-atQqM-RWqs
• Professor Shokoofeh Shamsi // https://youtu.be/IlWGlSS9p9I

Children on campus: Policy and literature review

Our review of policies, procedures and literature about children on university campuses continued today. It is great working with Carolyn Gregoric, Suzanne Hopf and Claudio Dionigi to develop our background understanding of children on campus and how we can use this knowledge to inform the creation of The Treehouse and our space for children's communication and research. 

Word cloud of auto-generated themes from university policy and procedures

NVivo analysis of policies and procedures

EndNote review of 1,223 articles (229 duplicates) = 994 papers to review

Inspiration for The Treehouse from CSU's FOAE Technical Officer

Today Karl Shead, Technical Officer for the Faculty of Arts and Education showed me around Building 1454 - the creative hub for the Faculty and School of Communication and Creative Industries. We had a wonderful brainstorm about how the facilities and resources could be used to create The Treehouse as a physical and virtual space for children's communication and research. Thanks Karl - I look forward to working with you and your team.

Congratulations Cathie Matthews - submission of HETI Report

Congratulations to Cathie Matthews who submitted her HETI Report last week. Cathie has been enrolled in the Rural Research Capacity Building Program (RRCBP) https://www.heti.nsw.gov.au/education-and-training/courses-and-programs/rural-research-capacity-building-program 

Her report was titled: Rural health professionals and early childhood education services working together to support 2-year-olds’ communication development in rural New South Wales. 

Here is the abstract: 

Children with speech and language difficulties are at risk for poorer outcomes in literacy, academic success, social-emotional wellbeing, and employment outcomes. Nearly 20% of children are regarded as late talkers. Early identification and intervention are important to increase the likelihood of children communicating successfully now and in the future. The Early Language Identification Measure-Shortened (ELIM-S) has recently been developed and validated in the United Kingdom to support the earlier identification of those at risk of communication delays. The current mixed methods study sought to assess the feasibility and acceptability of use of this early communication tool by caregivers, early childhood staff and speech pathologists with 2-year-old children attending early childhood education centres or child and family health nursing services in one rural city in the Western NSW Local Health District (WNSWLHD). This feasibility study demonstrated that the Early Communication Measure successfully initiated dialogue around 2-year-old’s communication development between caregivers and staff working in early childhood settings in a rural metropolitan city in NSW. Early educators, child and family health nurses and caregivers found the Early Communication Measure to be feasible and acceptable to monitor 2-year-old children’s communication development. It was found to offer better outcomes and detail for staff compared to standard monitoring practices, with a positive outlook for its future use particularly by caregivers and educators. Furthermore, it promoted early and appropriate referrals for speech pathology assessments. This research will inform interdisciplinary collaborative practices across WNSWLHD for supporting young children’s early communication development. Furthermore, results from this pilot study may inform the development of a validation study of this communication tool in Australia.

Cathie's research also forms part of her Masters research at Charles Sturt University and is a pilot work for our collaboration with the Orange Aboriginal Medical Service.

During her research Cathie has been supported by the following institutions and people: 

• Charles Sturt University: Sharynne McLeod, Julian Grant, Libbey Murray
• The University of Sydney School of Rural Health: Georgina Luscombe
• NSW Health Education and Training Institute: Kerith Duncanson

Congratulations Cathie from your proud supervisors!

Carillon debut

During 2023 I have been learning to play the Bathurst War Memorial Carillon. My teacher is Lyn Fuller AM, President of the Carillon Society of Australia. On Saturday 4th November, Lyn, Katherine Howarth and I played two trios for the Bathurst community during the 90th anniversary celebrations of the Bathurst Carillon and the Carillon Society of Australia Annual Meeting.

Katherine, Sharynne and Lyn following their performance

RCSLT conference presentation about SDGs

Prof. Julie Marshall and I are presented a paper at the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists' Conference (1-2 November, 2023). This conference was held online https://www.rcslt.org/events/rcslt-conference-2023/

Invited presentation: Our 21st century brain at Government House Sydney

I was honoured to be an invited speaker at the following event

OUR 21st CENTURY BRAIN 

• Date: Thursday, 2 November 2023,  8.45 am–5.00 pm AEDT 
• Venue: Live stream from Government House Sydney 
• Information: https://royalsoc.org.au/events-news/gallery/rsnsw-and-learned-academies-forum-november-2023
  
• Brochure and Program:  Summary, Complete Program  
• CSU News story: https://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/nsw-government-house-forum-focuses-on-childrens-communication
• YouTube Recording from the whole day: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYFFwCGj2FIY-x4zrvJUXcv1-k_APtRVo
• My presentation (begins at 14:30): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2S6HBitGfk&list=PLYFFwCGj2FIY-x4zrvJUXcv1-k_APtRVo&index=2 

Sharynne and Kate Margetson

Dr Susan Pond, President of Royal Society of NSW with Charles Sturt University students (Noah Secomb, Kate Margetson)

Prof Sharynne McLeod

Prof Sharynne McLeod presenting "Children's communication and the developing brain"

Kate Margetson, Sharynne McLeod, Noah Secomb at Government House

Summary of the day's program: The brain underpins our basic instincts and needs, and behavioural responses to the world around us. The brain mediates our compassion, reason, and imagination which are reflected in great works of the arts and sciences. Yet our brain is also the source of distress, dysfunction, and malice. Despite centuries of recurring impacts of tribalism, racism, dehumanisation, and exclusion of ‘outsiders’, we continue to inflict suffering on others. At the same time, the 21st century brings new challenges that extend well beyond immediate threats to very complex societal challenges such as global security, climate change, massive demographic shifts, resource management, information overload, and artificial intelligence. Have we reached the edge of our human capacity to respond effectively as either individuals or collective groups? 

The context and demands on our brains have been transformed by the very tools we have created, including new information technology platforms, and rapidly developing and deployed forms of artificial intelligence. Diseases of the brain are increasingly prevalent in our ageing population, as are the increasing mental health challenges that are evident across the human lifespan. Considerable progress across the sciences and humanities has deepened our understanding of genetic, environmental, and social factors that underpin brain development and function. Rising demands on our capacity to respond appropriately to globalised threats bring an urgent need to apply our scientific understanding to the development of just and sustainable solutions. 

This year’s Royal Society of New South Wales and Learned Academies Forum focusses on recent progress in unravelling the workings of the brain and opportunities to use our emerging understanding to promote human wellbeing well beyond the 21st Century. The Forum is held under the auspices of Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC, Governor of New South Wales. The Royal Society of New South Wales acknowledges the generous support by Her Excellency, the Academies, the Office of the NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer, and Haus Holdings. @royalsocnsw #21stCenturyBrain

 The day was a wonderful time to connect with friends and colleagues including:

• Laureate Professor Anne Castles: https://www.acu.edu.au/about-acu/faculties-directorates-and-staff/faculty-of-education-and-arts/australian-centre-for-the-advancement-of-literacy/our-people/professor-anne-castles
  
• Prof Jakelin (Jaky) Troy: https://www.sydney.edu.au/research/our-researchers/academic-staff/jakelin-troy.html
• Prof Penny Van Bergen: https://scholars.uow.edu.au/penny-van-bergen

Prof Penny, Laureate Prof Anne Castles, Prof Sharynne McLeod, Kate Margetson

Prof Jakelin Troy, Prof Sharynne McLeod, Kate Margetson

Government House