ECV2024 call for abstracts and site launch

We are hoping to launch the ECV2024 site next week with our call for abstracts. Here is the announcement

The Early Childhood Voices Conference (ECV2024) is a FREE international interdisciplinary conference sharing research about innovative methods, theories, and partnerships with children, families, and practitioners. ECV2024 supports social justice during early childhood and within the early childhood sector. International speakers will present research or commentary in a virtual online space. Presentations will share innovations to improve the lives of children and families, and support the evidence-based practice of early childhood educators. The conference will be held from 25th to 28th November 2024. ECV2024 will be held entirely online and asynchronously; that is, you can watch the presentations anytime during the conference. ECV2024 is FREE. There is no registration fee and no fees to present or view the presentations. Registration is required only for confirmation of participation. ECV2024 is organised by the Charles Sturt University Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research Group. Abstract submissions are welcome from 22 April 2024.

European Portuguese speech assessments

It is so helpful to travel to different countries to learn more about the clinical tools used to assess children's speech. Here are some of the European Portuguese speech assessments that I need to add to the Multilingual Children's Speech webpage.   

• Paediatric Automatic Phonological Analysis Tools (APAT): https://acsa.web.ua.pt/FAFA.htm (free)
• Teste Fonético-Fonológico: https://edubox.pt/terapia-da-fala?lang=pt
• Rastreio de Linguagem e Fala (RALF) (screening): https://edubox.pt/terapia-da-fala?lang=pt
  

I was able to purchase one of them for my international collection of speech assessments.

Keynote speaker at XI Workshop on Linguistics, Language Development and Impairment, Lisbon, Portugal

I am the keynote speaker at the XI Workshop on Linguistics, Language Development and Impairment on April, 18 /18 de Abril - 2024 - held at the Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal. https://www.clul.ulisboa.pt/en/node/2498

I co-authored the presentation with Kate Margetson. Our presentation was titled: "Assessing children's speech in unfamiliar languages: Insights from Vietnamese-English children". Here is the abstract:

There are over 7,000 languages spoken across the world. Communication professionals have the power to enhance everyone’s participation in day-to-day life. However, when working with multilingual children, professionals can focus on their own dominant language, and limit children’s full participation and communication rights to speak home language(s) within families and communities. This presentation provides a clear step-by-step process for how to assess children’s speech in unfamiliar languages using free resources found on the Multilingual Children’s Speech website (https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/home). The process will be explained using evidence from VietSpeech (https://www.csu.edu.au/research/vietspeech), a 4-year research program working with Vietnamese-English speaking children and families in Australia. Participants will learn how to use the step-by-step process for assessing children in any language and support home language maintenance.

Presenting the Speech Assessment of Children's Home Languages (SACHL) for the first time

Ana Margarida Ramalho, Sharynne McLeod, Maria João Freitas, Marisa Lousada

Other presenters are: 

• JOSÉ FONSECA (FMUL): Micro- and Macrolinguistic Analysis of the Image "Ladrão de Biscoitos" Oral Description / Análise Micro • Macro Linguistica da Descrição Oral da Figura "Ladrão de Biscoitos" 
• ANA RITA VALENTE (IEETA, LASI - UA; ESSLEI; SPEECHCARE), CATARINA OLIVEIRA (IEETA, LASI - UA), LUCIANA ALBUQUERQUE (CINTESIS.UA) & PLÍNIO BARBOSA (UNICAMP): Vocal Aging: Longitudinal Study of Prosodic Changes in Portuguese Public Figures / Envelhecimento Vocal: Estudo Longitudinal de Mudanças Prosódicas em Figuras Públicas Portuguesas. 
• TELMA PEREIRA (ESS/IPS; ACENTUAR), VÂNIA RIBEIRO (ACENTUAR; AUDICEN); ANGELA JESUS (ESS/ IPS) & ANA PAULA MENDES (ESS/IPS; IEETA); ProNAR: Rapid Naming by Portuguese Children with and without Developmental Language Disorder / ProNAR: Nomeação rápida por crianças portuguesas com e sem Perturbação do Desenvolvimento da Linguagem 
• ANA MARGARIDA RAMALHO (ESSA; CLUL) & MARIA JOÃO FREITAS (FLUL, CLUL); On the Impact of Word Length in Phonological Assessement / Sobre o Efeito da Extensão de Palavra na Avaliação do Desenvolvimento Fonologico 
• ALEXANDRINA MARTINS (UAVEIRO; CLUL): Syntactic Complexity in Children with ASD and DLD Complexidade Sintática em Crianças com PEA e PDL CARINA PINTO (ESSLEI; CITECHCARE): Exploring the Impact of Morphological Knowledge in Reading / Explorando o Impacto do Conhecimento Morfológico na Leitura 
• ANA SUCENA, CRISTINA GARRIDO, CATIA MARQUES, MARIANA MATOS & ANA FILIPA SILVA (ESS/IPP): Early Predictors of Reading Success in Portuguese Schools /Preditores Precoces de Sucesso Leitura em Escolas Portuguesas

Announcement of the first Charles Sturt Distinguished Professors

The Vice Chancellor has announced the first Charles Sturt Distinguished Professors in her Vice-Chancellor's Message | 17 April 2024:

I am pleased to announce that Professor Sharynne McLeod, Professor Geoff Gurr, and Professor Chris Blanchard have been appointed as Charles Sturt Distinguished Professors. The development of the Distinguished Professor Scheme is an important objective within the Research Strategy to help us attract and retain the highest-calibre academic staff and produce world-class research. These long-standing, high achieving Charles Sturt academics are our first internal appointments. They join external appointments of Distinguished Professors Muhammad J A Shiddiky, Sarah O’Shea, Alan Cooper, Jing Sun, and Stan Grant who has recently returned to Charles Sturt. I have recorded a message to congratulate and thank our first internal appointments (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eBy31PEJZk). I will be profiling the achievements of each of the Distinguished Professors in my Message over future issues.

I am honoured to be in such distinguished company and look forward to continuing my work at Charles Sturt in this role. 

Here is the Vice Chancellor's announcement:

Professor Sharynne McLeod is a remarkable person who embodies the transformative power of education and research. I am pleased to announce her appointment as a Charles Sturt Distinguished Professor. Professor McLeod’s interdisciplinary research foregrounds communication rights and social justice and enhances equitable participation for all children, particularly multilingual children with speech, language, and communication needs. She has presented her research to thousands of people worldwide, including the Australian Government Senate Inquiries, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations. She was named Australia’s Research Field Leader for Audiology, Speech, and Language Pathology in The Australian newspaper’s supplement Research 2024 and best in the world in 2023. Professor McLeod joined Charles Sturt 25 years ago as a lecturer. In that time, she has led countless research programs, but for every piece of work, she asks, ‘Will this make a difference to the lives of children and families across the world? ' On receiving the University’s highest promotion, Professor McLeod said, ‘My students and colleagues have inspired, encouraged, challenged, and mentored my growth, and now it is a great honour to be recognised.’ “I am excited to begin my next phase at Charles Sturt, leading a new interdisciplinary centre focused on children’s research and communication. The centre will be located in The Treehouse, which will be a beacon of innovation and inclusivity, revolving around empowering children to communicate, collaborate, and create a world worth living in." Professor McLeod’s first encounter with (what is now) Charles Sturt University was as a child at West Bathurst Public School, when the school choir was invited to sing on campus. No one in her family had attended university, but the encounter inspired Sharynne to keep doing her best at school. This moment shaped the focus of her academic life, recognising potential in all children and supporting them to participate fully in society regardless of their postcodes, abilities, culture, languages spoken, family and economic circumstances. Congratulations, Professor McLeod, and thank you for your selfless commitment to the greater good.

Colourful joyful Portugal

I have flown to Portugal (on my way to the UK) to be the keynote speaker at the XI LLDI Workshop (https://workshop-on-linguistics-language-development-and-impairment.webnode.pt/). What a colourful and joyful place to get over jetlag! Here are some photos taken during my visit.

 

Enjoying pastéis de Belém (
(I've also enjoyed pastéis de nata)

ECIR bi-monthly meeting

What a wonderful meeting today with the Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research Sturt Scheme. We covered some of the exciting projects undertaken over the past few months and shared the vision for our new research centre and The Treehouse.

Cathie's endorsement of candidature

Today was Cathie Matthews' endorsement of candidature for her MPhil research titled: “Supporting 2-year-olds’ communication: Collaborations between rural health professionals and early childhood education services” 

• Chair - Dr James Deehan
• Supervisors – Professor Sharynne McLeod, Professor Julian Grant and Associate Professor Elizabeth Murray 
• Reviewers – Associate Professor Sarah Verdon and Dr Suzanne Hopf 

Thursday the 11th of April (12:00pm to 2:00pm)

Here is her abstract:

Early identification of communication delay is important to increase the likelihood of children communicating successfully now and, in the future, and to reduce the risk of poorer outcomes in literacy, academic success, social-emotional wellbeing, and employment. The current quantitative study sought to assess the feasibility of the Early Communication Measures (ECM) to identify communication risk in 48 2-year-old children by eight early childhood educators, eight child and family health nurses, and 48 caregivers. The Early Communication Measures comprised the Early Language Identification Measure-Shortened (ELIM-S) and the Intelligibility in Context Scale (ICS). The Early Communication Measures was found to be feasible and acceptable to monitor 2-year-old children’s communication development. Feasability (Bowen et al., 2009) and acceptability (Sekhon et al., 2017) frameworks were used to consider feasibility constructs such as demand, acceptability, expansion, and preliminary outcomes; and acceptability constructs such as affective attitude, burden, ethicality, intervention coherence, opportunity costs, perceived effectiveness, self-efficacy. Following the ECM almost half of the caregivers (43.5%) were recommended that their child should see a speech-language pathologist for further assessment and almost a third (30.4%) were referred to other local service and resources to support their child’s development. It promoted early and appropriate referrals for speech-language pathology assessments and provided more detail for staff compared to standard monitoring practices. This research supports interdisciplinary collaborative practices for early identification of young children’s communication development risk.

Congratulations Cathie! 

Published book chapter: Diagnosing speech sound disorder in bilingual Vietnamese-English-speaking children: Are English-only assessments sufficient?

Congratulations Kate on the publication of this important book chapter from your PhD. 

Margetson, K., McLeod, S., & Verdon, S. (2024). Diagnosing speech sound disorder in bilingual Vietnamese-English-speaking children: Are English-only assessments sufficient? In E. Babatsouli (Ed.). Multilingual acquisition and learning: A ecosystemic view to diversity (pp. 217-245). John Benjamins Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.67.08mar

Here is the website for the chapter: https://benjamins.com/catalog/sibil.67.08mar

Visiting OAMS and planning our research

Today we visited the Orange Aboriginal Medical Service as part of our Rural Health Research Institute (RHRI). Emily-Jane Woodhead and I were able to visit in person and Sarah Bartlett was prevented from driving to Orange by the significant weather event across the state.

• We spent the morning with Ebony Hay, the Child Health Navigator at OAMS and learned more about the important work she does with children across the city and district, particularly in schools. She has a number of excellent programs to screen and support children's hearing, some of which are associated with Hearing Australia. 
• We spent the afternoon with Dr Liz Pressick from RHRI sharing insights between our research projects. 
• Finally, I worked with Cathie Matthews to finalise her MPhil Endorsement presentation that she will present next week. 
• Just before we arrived, we learned that we had received ethics approval from the AH&MRC https://www.ahmrc.org.au/ethics-at-ahmrc/ so now need approval from CSU to be able to proceed.
  

It was an insightful and productive day. 

Emily-Jane Woodhead, Ebony Hay (OAMS), Sarah Bartlett, Sharynne McLeod

Emily-Jane Woodhead, Liz Pressick (RHRI), Sharynne McLeod

Cathie Matthews and Sharynne McLeod

Initial collaborations with staff from the School of Information and Communication Studies

I have enjoyed conversations with A/Prof Tina Du, Dr Deborah Wise and Rachel Walls from the School of Information and Communication Studies. There are many synergies with our shared interest in communication rights for all.

A/Prof Tina Du, Head School of Information and Communication Studies

Sharynne, Rachel Walls, Deborah Wise and Tina Du from SICS at The Treehouse

Impact case study workshop with ECIR

Today we had our second impact case study workshop with Dale Curran from the Research Office. She mentioned that people request testimonials from people as evidence of impact (previously I have only used unsolicited emails). Here are some resources she shared:

• Link to the blog with guidance on testimonials from London School of Economics https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2018/06/08/guidance-on-testimonials-and-statements-to-corroborate-impact/ 
• Knowledge Exchange and Impact https://info.lse.ac.uk/staff/services/knowledge-exchange-and-impact

CSU Conscia Research Staff Mentoring program

I have just been accepted into the CSU Conscia Research Staff Mentoring program and will be mentoring CSU staff members during 2024.

https://research.csu.edu.au/research-support/researcher-development/mentoring/conscia

The Conscia Research Staff Mentoring Program pairs staff with a research work-function with a more experienced academic research mentor to develop their research career, meet research goals, and strategize for future academic success. 

We attended an information session about the Conscia program that schedules and tracks goals and evidence regarding mentoring.

Learning from one another during our mentoring session

 

ECV2024 publications committee

Our ECV2024 publications committee had an exciting meeting today.

Our book from ECV2020 is in the final page proofing stage before publication:

Mahony, L., McLeod, S., Salamon, A., Dwyer, J. (Eds.) (2024, in press). Early childhood voices: Children, families, professionals. Springer. https://link.springer.com/book/9783031564833

We have had conversations with commissioning editors from Multilingual Matters and Springer for two books to be published based on papers from ECV2022 and ECV2024

ECV2024 publications committee:
Dr Shukla Sikder, Prof Sharynne McLeod, Dr Sheena Elwick,
Dr Helen Blake, Arifa Rahman (Dr Suzanne C. Hopf)

Impact - Our research on speech acquisition incorporated into state guidance within the USA

Our research on children's speech acquisition(Crowe & McLeod, 2020; Ireland et al., 2020; McLeod & Crowe, 2018) has been incorporated in state guidance within the USA: 

• Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Children’s Articulation and Speech Sound Development https://dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/sped/pdf/sl-articulation-infographic.pdf 
• Virginia Department of Education https://www.doe.virginia.gov/programs-services/special-education/specific-disabilities/speech-language-impairment

• 
  

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 

Ireland, M., McLeod, S., Farquharson, K., & Crowe, K. (2020). Evaluating children in U.S. public schools with speech sound disorders: Considering federal and state laws, guidance, and research. Topics in Language Disorders, 40(4), 326–340. https://doi.org/10.1097/tld.0000000000000226 

McLeod, S., & Crowe, K. (2018). Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 27(4), 1546–1571. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100

Invitation RPTF - Revista Portuguesa de Terapia da Fala [Portuguese Journal of Speech and Language Therapy]

 I have been invited to write a paper for RPTF - Revista Portuguesa de Terapia da Fala [Portuguese Journal of Speech and Language Therapy] https://www.aptf-rptf.com/.  I will work with Helen Blake and Kate Margetson and base it on my keynote presentations in Portugal in 2023 and 2024.

Using and creating children’s books to support children’s communication

This article just appeared in ASHA Leader: Books Provide Full Language Story to Bilingual Students With DLD and talks about how we can use books with multilingual children and to support communication. https://leader.pubs.asha.org/do/10.1044/leader.SCM.29032024.slp-schools-bilingual-dld.34 

The authors recommend Reading A-Z that includes books in the following languages: Spanish, Vietnamese, Polish, Ukrainian and French Children’s books in Vietnamese: https://www.readinga-z.com/worldlanguages/vietnamese/leveled-books/ Children’s books in: https://www.readinga-z.com/worldlanguages/

Culturally responsive practice in speech-language pathology

Today our team was very honoured to learn from A/Prof Sarah Verdon today about culturally responsive practice.

Cultural responsiveness was defined by Sarah as:

• An understanding of, and respect for, cultural and linguistic differences among individuals
• Knowing how to respond in a culturally sensitive and appropriate manner when working with children and families

 

Developing a proposal for the second edition of Multilingual Aspects of Speech Sound Disorders in Children

We have been invited to develop a proposal for the second edition of our book published by Multilingual Matters. Here are the details of the first edition: 

McLeod, S. & Goldstein, B. A. (Eds). (2012). Multilingual aspects of speech sound disorders in children. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. (ISBN: 9781847695123, 289 pages) 

https://www.multilingual-matters.com/page/detail/Multilingual-Aspects-of-Speech-Sound-Disorders-in-Children/?k=9781847695123

Today Helen Blake, Kate Margetson and I worked on the proposal. We are recommending a slight change in the title to "Multilingual Aspects of Children's Speech Sounds (2nd ed.)" as well as a comprehensive update. The first edition was last published in 2012 - and there has been a lot of new research conducted since this time. 

Kate Margetson, Sharynne McLeod, Helen L. Blake

Visiting UTS

Today I visited University of Technology Sydney. I am an Adjunct Associate Professor at UTS, and was able to catch up with colleagues and students as well as hold a meeting with CSU colleagues to progress some of our current research. I was thrilled to learn that Prof Bronwyn Hemsley has just received the UTS Vice Chancellor's UTS Medal for Research Impact 2023.

Prof Emma Power, Kate Margetson (CSU), Prof Sharynne McLeod (CSU),
Prof Bronwyn Hemsley (UTS), Dr Helen Blake (UTS and CSU)

Congratulations Prof Bronwyn Hemsley!

I enjoyed meeting year 2 UTS students: Annushka and Suruthi

Preparing our invited presentation for the 100th anniversary of IALP

The International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders (IALP) https://ialp-org.com/ will be hosting a Composium event entitled "Contemporary Perspectives, in Communication Sciences and Disorders" 27th - 29th June 2024 in Vienna to celebrate the 100th anniversary of IALP. Dr Antony Duttine, Technical Lead for Rehabilitation at the WHO has confirmed his attendance https://ialp-org.com/ialp-centennial-registration-now-open/

We have been invited to present this session, and because we are unable to attend, recorded the presentation today:

A contemporary perspective of children’s speech development in languages of the world 

Sharynne McLeod, Helen L. Blake and Kate Margetson Charles Sturt University, Australia   

Bakcground information: I was the foundation chair of the Child Speech committee of IALP and have been the IALP representative at a 2023 meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO) since IALP is officially recognized as as Non-State Actor.  We also attended and presented papers at the 32nd IALP World Congress held in Auckland in August 2023 which attracted 1,000 delegates.