New Zealand vs. Australia

New Zealand and Australia are often said to have sibling rivalry. In many ways their culture and history are similar, with white (British) people settling in each country at similar times. There are many similarities between New Zealand and Australian English consonants, vowels and diphthongs. The most noticeable difference is in the pronunciation of the high front vowels ‘i’, ‘e’ and ‘a’. Speaking the phrase “fish and chips” is one way many people use to differentiate these two dialects of English. Another area of difference is the vast size of Australia vs. the compactness of New Zealand. Australia’s size means the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people speak hundreds of different languages. In contrast, Māori is the same (although with some dialectal differences) throughout New Zealand.



Asia Pacific Conference on Speech, Language and Hearing, Christchurch, New Zealand

The 8th Asia Pacific Conference on Speech, Language and Hearing was conducted from 11-14 January. It was held at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. The program listed around 120 papers from 23 different countries. Here are the papers my colleagues and I presented:

• McLeod, S. Crosslinguistic speech acquisition in Australia.
• McLeod, S. Becoming bilingual: Children’s insights about sequential bilingualism.
• McLeod, S. & Baker, E. Australian speech pathologists’ assessment and analysis practices for children with speech sound disorders from English and non-English backgrounds.
• McCormack, J., Harrison, L. J., McLeod, S. & McAllister, L. A population study of children identified with communication concerns in early childhood: Parent, teacher and child reported outcomes at school-age.
• Crowe, K., McLeod, S. & Ching, T. Oral languages and communication modes used by children with hearing loss in Australia.

I particularly enjoyed listening to the key note address provided by Kathy Lee (Chinese University of Hong Kong) titled: "When a SLP meets a psychometrician: The journey of constructing assessment tools"

Conference website

Professors Manwa Ng (Hong Kong), Nan Mai Wang (Taiwan), Kathy Lee (Hong Kong), and Sharynne

Kate Crowe, Jane McCormack, Sharynne in New Zealand

Tongan

Tongan is spoken by the people in the Kingdom of Tonga. Fifty two of the 176 Tongan islands in the South Pacific archipelago are inhabited.

Tongan consists of
5 vowels: a, e, i, o, u
12 consonants: p, t, k, m, n, ng, f, v, s, h, l, ‘
The consonants p, t, k sound voiced to English speakers.
Unlike English, Tongan words can commence with ng.
The ‘ is phonemic as can be seen in the following Tongan words:

• la’a = sun vs. laa = sail
• tu’i = king vs. tui = believe in God
• ‘ivi = Eve vs. ivi = energy

Here are some of the words I have learned:

• malo e lelei (hello)
• malo (thank you) 
• ‘alu ā (goodbye, if you are staying)
• nofo ā (goodbye, if you are leaving)

Biblical words are “transliterated” using Tongan consonants and vowels: Semisi (James), Mele (Mary).

Children from Tonga, New Zealand, and Australia

While visiting New Zealand, my family and I spent time with an Australian Tongan family. They come to New Zealand annually to visit relatives, to participate in the Tongan church, and keep in touch with their language and cultural heritage. We were invited to join them at the Saturday beach picnic that followed the Tongan church’s week of prayer. There were about 100 people at the picnic: from grandmothers to babies and all the children played and were cared for by the whole community. People ate, shared stores in Tongan and English, swam, kayaked, and later the men and boys played rugby league in the ankle-deep water.

We were very welcomed and I learned a lot about Tongan culture and language, particularly from two women: one who is a social worker working with Pacifica people, and one who is a high school teacher. Some of the things that they mentioned are that church and community is very important. At church events there is always a lot of food so that no one in the community is hungry. Women are respected. Tongan people are happy, and will often laugh seemingly for no reason. Not all of the grandparents can speak English, so speaking with their family is one motivation for children to learn and retain Tongan. My friends are fortunate to be able to visit New Zealand annually to retain their family, cultural and linguistic heritage.

Hugo (2010) describes circular migration in Australia where many families migrate from their homeland, to Australia, to their homeland, and back to Australia. Many more families in Australia have circular visiting where this pattern occurs regularly, but for shorter periods of time. This circularity in Australia’s people continues to enhance our cultural and linguistic diversity and heritage.

Hugo, G. (2010). Circularity, reciprocity, and return: An important dimension of contemporary transnationalism. ISSBD Bulletin, 58(2), 2-5.

Data analysis and writing research

Throughout the year I have been very fortunate to work with two amazing research assistants: Hannah Wilkin and Jane McCormack. They have been instrumental in ensuring high quality data entry, analysis, publications, and presentations. During December we have entered and analysed data on 128 speech-language pathologists' professional practice with children who speak languages other than English, 4,983 Australian children's cultural and linguistic diversity, and children's qualitative data regarding becoming bilingual.  

Sharynne and Hannah Wilkin analysing data at CSU in Bathurst

Listening to children in Philadelphia, PA, USA on Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day in the USA is a day for families to get together. In Philadelphia, the day starts with a parade where children line the streets to watch teenagers and adults perform in marching bands, on floats and with giant balloons such as Big Bird and Frosty the Snowman. Just as Frosty arrived it began to snow! The first snow of the season.

I was invited to the Goldsteins' home for Thanksgiving dinner. It was a very special time to enjoy each others' company and eat well: Italian soup, turkey with all the trimmings, and pumpkin, pecan, and apple pie (as well as lots of other treats). The feast was followed by watching gridiron football and having friends come over.

For most children in the US, Thanksgiving is a time of "fs": family-food-football-fun-friends.

Multilingual Aspects of Speech Sound Disorders in Children

Brian Goldstein and I are co-editing a book titled Multilingual aspects of speech sound disorders in children to be published by Multilingual Matters in the UK. The book includes 30 chapters written by authors from 16 different countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region - China, Iceland, Israel, Malta, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Singapore, Taiwan, Turkey, UK, and USA. They address sociolinguistic issues, typical speech acquisition, perception, assessment, transcription, analysis, intervention, and literacy.


Languages and dialects mentioned in the book include: Albanian, American Sign Language, Amharic, Arabic (various dialects), Armenian, Athabaskan languages, Australian Indigenous languages, Australian Sign Language (Auslan), Austronesian languages, Basque, Bini, British Sign Language, Bulgarian, Burmese, Cantonese, Catalan, Chinese, Creole, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (various dialects), Ewe, Farsi, Finnish, Flemish, French, Fulani, Galician, German, Gilbertese, Greek, Gujarati, Haida, Hawai‘ian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hokkien, Hungarian, Icelandic, Inuit, Irish, Italian, Jalapa Mazatec, Jamaican Creole (Patois), Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Kurdish, Lahanda, Lao, Latin, Latvian, Limburg, Lithuanian, Lugandan, Malay, Maltese, Mandarin, Mayan languages, Melpa, Mirpuri, Mongolian, Navajo, Norwegian, Oto-Manguean, Pakistani heritage languages, Pawaian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian & European), Punjabi, Putonghua, Rabinian, Romanian, Rotokas, Russian, Sami, Samoan, Scottish Gaelic, Serbo-Croatian, Sindhi, Shanghainese, Singlish, Slovene, Southern Min, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tamil, Teke, Thai, Tlingit, Tok Pisin, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, Welsh, Western Pahari, Wolof, Xhosa, !Xũ, Yucatec Wolof, and Zulu.

Brian Goldstein and Sharynne McLeod

Temple University, Philadelphia, PA

This morning I taught two of Dr. Brian Goldstein's classes at Temple University:

• Foundations and Management in Phonological Disorders (postgraduate class)
• Phonetics and Phonology (undergraduate class)

It was a pleasure to teach them about speech sounds, international speech acquisition, and how to acquire an Australian accent! Thanks so much to the students who took me out to dinner and taught me a lot about studying speech-language pathology in the USA.

Temple University is honouring the diversity of its students by hanging flags representing the countries they are from in the student centre atrium. It was great to see the Australian flag, as well as flags of a number of other countries I had visited this year.

American Speech-Language-Hearing Convention, Philadelphia, PA, USA

From 18-20 November, I attended the American Speech-Language-Hearing Convention, in Philadelphia, PA along with 14,000 other delegates.

I co-presented the following papers:

• Dixon, W., Harrison, L. J., McLeod, S. (2010, November). Association between temperament and speech and language acquisition. Invited 1 hour seminar.
• Williams, A. L., McLeod, S., McCauley, R. J. et al. (2010, November). Interventions for speech sound disorders in 2010. 3 hour short course.
• McLeod, S., Harrison, L. J., McAllister, L., & McCormack, J. (2010, November). Identification, severity, and impact of SSD in the community, Technical presentation.
• Washington, K., Thomas-Stonell, N., McLeod, S., Warr-Leeper, G., (2010). Predictors of participation outcomes in children with communication disorders. Technical presentation.
• Washington, K., Thomas-Stonell, N., McLeod, S., Oddson, B., Warr-Leeper, G., (2010). Evaluating participation outcomes with intervention in pediatric speech-language pathology. Technical presentation.

In addition I chaired the executive board meeting for the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, launched Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children, and have had invigorating conversations with so many colleagues from around the world.

Lynn Williams (USA), Sharynne McLeod, Rebecca McCauley (USA), Elise Baker (Australia) & Susan Rvachew (Canada)



Authors of Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children and ASHA short course presenters



Karla & Kerian Washington (Canada), Sharynne, Elise Baker (Australia), Yvonne Wren (UK)



Linda Harrison and Sharynne McLeod at the Liberty Bell



Australian Research Council 2009‐10 Annual Report

The Australian Research Council 2009-1010 Annual Report has profiled the Sound Effects Study, an ARC Discovery Research project Children with speech impairment: A population study of prevalence, severity, impact and service provision, that was undertaken from 2007-2009 by Sharynne McLeod, Linda Harrison, Lindy McAllister, and Jane McCormack.
ARC Annual Report (page 116)
Sound Effects Study website

Infants' Lives in Childcare

Over the past 2 days the research team from the Infants' Lives in Childcare Project (funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant 2008-2011) met to discuss the data collected so far, to plan publications and the final stage of the project. It was a productive time and great to work with the team who are located in different sites throughout New South Wales. We are using a mosaic approach to analyse data from a range of sources and perspectives including: babycam, video, photographs from older children, MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories, time use diaries and temperament questionnaires.


Infants' Lives in Childcare team:
L-R Linda Harrison, Tina Stratigos, Sheena Elwick, Sharynne,
Fran Press, Ben Bradley, Joy Goodfellow



Perspectives on Global Issues in Communication Sciences and Related Disorders

I have been invited to be an inaugural editorial board member of Perspectives on Global Issues in Communication Sciences and Related Disorders. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association have created a new special interest division called Global Issues in Communication Sciences and Related Disorders, and this journal is part of the membership benefits after joining the special interest division.

Sharynne and Prof. Dolores Battle

"It is the mission of the Division on Global Issues in Communication Sciences and Related Disorders to provide international leadership related to audiology and speech-language pathology services by promoting research, networking, collaboration, education, and mentoring for its affiliates, students, and other service providers in the global marketplace."

The extent and experience of living with childhood speech impairment

On Friday 1st October, Jane McCormack submitted her PhD titled "The extent and experience of living with childhood speech impairment" Congratulations Jane! It has been a pleasure supervising her PhD along with Lindy McAllister and Linda Harrison. Her PhD comprises 9 journal articles that have been published, or submitted to national and international journals. She was awarded the prestigous Sir Robert Menzies Memorial Research Scholarship in the Allied Health Sciences to complete her studies.

Jane McCormack receiving the Menzies Foundation Allied Health Scholarship

Her abstract is as follows:
"Communication impairment is a high prevalence condition in preschool children, and speech impairment (also called articulation/phonological/speech sound disorder) is one of the most common forms of communication impairment among this age group. Early intervention is recommended for children with speech impairment due to growing awareness of the potential long-term consequences of unresolved speech impairment (e.g., poorer school achievement, unemployment).
Intervention for speech impairment has traditionally focused on correcting children’s production of sounds/words, which may not address the full impact of speech impairment on a child’s life, or the priorities of the child and family. In recent years there has been a shift to consider health (including communication) in a more holistic manner, with the development of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF; World Health Organization (WHO), 2001) and the ICF-Children and Youth version (ICF-CY; WHO, 2007). There has also been a shift to incorporate the views of clients (children and adults) in health intervention. In particular, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC; UNICEF, 1989) stipulated the rights of children to express their views in all matters affecting them. Both the ICF-CY and the UNCROC have been recommended by speech-language pathology professional associations as important considerations to guide speech-language pathology research and practice.

To date, no studies have investigated the views of individuals with speech impairment regarding their experience of the impairment and the association between the impairment and limitations to life activities. The research undertaken through this doctoral research aimed to develop an understanding of childhood speech impairment as perceived by those who experience speech impairment and their communication partners. Specifically, the research aimed to fulfil two objectives: 1) to investigate the link between childhood speech impairment and limitations to life activities, and 2) to describe the experience of living with childhood speech impairment. In order to fulfil these objectives, a series of reviews and research studies were conducted, the results of which have been published (or submitted for publication) in Australia and internationally.
This doctoral research contains nine papers which present the reviews and research studies. The three review papers provide information about: (1) the prevalence of communication impairment in Australian children, (2) the theoretical framework used to guide the research (the ICF and ICF-CY), and (3) the application of the ICF-CY to children with speech impairment. The six subsequent research papers have unique aims and methodologies; however, all use the ICF and ICF-CY as a theoretical lens to provide an overarching perspective.
The first three research papers investigate the link between speech impairment and limitations to life activities: (1) a systematic review of 57 research studies, (2) analysis of parents’ (n=86) and SLPs’ (n=205) responses to questionnaires about the impact of speech impairment on life activities and participation, and (3) analysis of child, parent and teacher reports gathered (and made available to the researcher) in the nationally representative Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (n=4,329). In these three research studies, activities limited by speech impairment extend beyond communication-based activities, and include interpersonal interactions (e.g., relating to persons in authority, informal relationships with friends/peers, parent-child relationships, sibling relationships), learning activities (reading, writing, attention and thinking, calculating), and handling stress and other psychosocial demands. Furthermore, the difficulties associated with childhood speech impairment extend beyond early childhood into the school years and later.
The experience of living with childhood speech impairment is investigated through three additional research studies: (1) a meaning-making analysis of children’s drawings (n=13), (2) a phenomenological analysis of interviews conducted with preschool children (n=13) and their families (n=21), and (3) a phenomenological analysis of two young adults with a history of childhood speech impairment and their mothers. Again, difficulty with speech is not the only difficulty identified, nor is it always the priority for intervention. Children and their families recognise difficulties with communication relate to the speech skills of the child, but also to the ability of communication partners to understand the child’s message, and frustration resulting from communication breakdowns. Individuals with speech impairment and their mothers reveal the difficulties associated with speech impairment continue throughout the lifespan, affecting social interactions, academic skills, and career progression for individuals and causing distress, isolation or guilt for parents.
This doctoral research expands current understanding of the extent and experience of childhood speech impairment across the lifespan, and reveals the unique and valuable insights about speech impairment that children and their families provide. As a series of papers, this research forms a body of evidence that could be drawn upon by policy-makers, speech-language pathologists, and educators to provide direction for timely and holistic intervention services for individuals with speech impairment and their families."

Research and higher degree students

One of the priviledges of my job is working with my research and higher degree students.
Last week:

• Jane McCormack submitted her PhD (see next post).




Kate working on her PhD


• Kate Crowe worked in Bathurst and developed her PhD research methodology to examine professionals' and parents' decision-making regarding whether children with hearing loss choose to sign, or speak, and if they do speak, do they speak one or more languages.
• Jacqui Barr worked on her PhD analysing interview data collected from children who are siblings of children with disabilities.
• Karla Washington finished her postdoctoral fellowship and is writing up her research. Last week we were working on a paper about parents' perspectives of speech and language intervention

Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development Speech Pathology Conference

I presented a 2-day workshop at the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development Speech Pathology Conference held at LaTrobe University, Melbourne on Monday 20th and Tuesday 21st September, 2010. There were 80 participants who worked in schools across Victoria. Here is the abstract:

Speech impairment in childhood is a high prevalence condition and can have a significant impact into adulthood. This 2-day workshop will provide an update about speech production, assessment, intervention, and evidence-based practice. The workshop will include a summary of the world’s research on the prevalence of childhood speech impairment and a comparison of this prevalence with other areas of learning need in childhood. The impact of childhood speech impairment will be examined from the perspectives of children, their siblings, parents, speech pathologists, and teachers. The workshops will also provide an overview of over 250 studies of speech acquisition in 24 languages (including English).

Sharynne with conference organizers
Kim Murrie and Leanne Pollock

Conversing with the world

Avril Nicoll, editor of Speech and Language Therapy in Practice has written an article about my Future Fellowship travels during 2010. Speech and Language Therapy in Practice is a UK-based publication for speech and language therapists:
Read the article

She has also written a blog entry about my workshop in Bristol:
Read Avril's blog entry

Experiencing language through the eyes of an outsider

One important aspect of my recent travels has been to put myself into the shoes of people who move to Australia who do not speak English. Bill Bryson’s quote below sums up some of my own feelings of bewilderment and joy.

“When I told friends in London that I was going to travel around Europe and write a book about it, they said. “Oh, you must speak a lot of languages.”

“Why no,” I would reply with a certain pride, “only English,” and they would look at me as if I was foolish or crazy. But that’s the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don’t want to know what people are talking about. I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.” (Bryson, 1992, p. 36)

Bryson, B. (1992). Neither here nor there: Travels in Europe. New York: HarperCollins.

Speech assessment and intervention using electropalatography

From 7-10 September I have been in Edinburgh at Queen Margaret University working with Sara Wood and Bill Hardcastle. We have been writing our book titled: Electropalatography for Speech Assessment and Intervention which will be published by Psychology Press, New York. It has been a great honour to work with these knowledgeable people. It has also been wonderful to discuss this and other projects with the other staff at QM.

Sara Wood, Bill Hardcastle, and Sharynne

Visiting Stockholm

I visited Stockholm from 4-6 September to learn more about Swedish and to meet with the editorial staff of informahealthcare, who publish the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology.

Sharynne, and informa staff Jane Webb, Therese Franzén,
Håkan Pårup, and Sofie Wennstrom

Revisiting Speech and Language Therapy Reseach Unit, Bristol

Between 30 August and 3rd September I revisited the Speech and Language Therapy Reseach Unit, Bristol to continue working with colleagues including Professor Sue Roulstone, Dr Yvonne Wren and Helen Hambly on journal articles, a grant and a book. On my last day we had lunch with Professor Jeanine Treffers-Daller and Dr Selma Babayigit from the University of West of England to discuss mulitilingualism and child development.