When he’s around his brothers ... he’s not so quiet

The following manuscript has just been accepted for publication:

McLeod, S., Daniel, G., Barr, J. (2012, in press August). “When he’s around his brothers ... he’s not so quiet”:  The private and public worlds of school-aged children with speech sound disorder. Journal of Communication Disorders.

ABSTRACT

  Children interact with people in context: including home, school, and in the community. Understanding children’s relationships within context is important for supporting children’s development. Using child-friendly methodologies, the purpose of this research was to understand the lives of children with speech sound disorder (SSD) in context. Thirty-four interviews were undertaken with six school-aged children identified with SSD, and their siblings, friends, parents, grandparents, and teachers. Interview transcripts, questionnaires, and children’s drawings were analysed to reveal that these children experienced the world in context dependent ways (private vs. public worlds). Family and close friends typically provided a safe, supportive environment where children could be themselves and participate in typical childhoods. In contrast, when out of these familiar contexts, the children often were frustrated, embarrassed, and withdrawn, their relationships changed, and they were unable to get their message across in public contexts. Speech-language pathology assessment and intervention could be enhanced by interweaving the valuable insights of children, siblings, friends, parents, teachers, and other adults within children’s worlds to more effectively support these children in context.

Providing equitable and quality service for multilingual children

The School of Teacher Education Research and Scholarship Brown Bag Seminar for Monday 27th August is titled: "Providing equitable and quality service for multilingual children with speech sound disorders in a linguistically diverse context". This presentation was made by Sarah Verdon, a PhD student I am supervising with Sandie Wong. The presentation was part of her endorsement of her PhD candidature. 

Elise Baker (University of Sydney), Sarah Verdon, Sandie Wong, Sharynne

Here is the abstract:
Australia is one of the world’s most multilingual countries. However, little is known about the demographics of Australia’s multilingual children and the early childhood education and health services available to support them. Most multilingual children are able to acquire their languages without difficulty; however, some children do not. Multilingual speech and language acquisition is different from monolingual acquisition and its unique and complex nature is less understood. Multilingual children with speech sound disorders are not being identified at the same rate as monolingual children and therefore are at risk of the many known impacts of speech sound disorders such as poor literacy development and later educational and social success. This research aims to provide demographic data about the linguistic diversity of multilingual children, their location in Australia, their language acquisition patterns, and the early childhood education and health services available to them. Through the study of innovative practices of early childhood education and health professionals from around the world, the second aim of this research is to identify strategies to effectively support Australia’s multilingual children with speech sound disorder. The knowledge gained from this research will inform the development of high quality, equitable, integrated services for multilingual children and increase positive outcomes for their future educational and social success.

Speech characteristics of 8-year-old children with speech difficulties

The following manuscript has just been accepted for publication:

Wren, Y., McLeod, S., White, P., Miller, L. & Roulstone, S. (2012, in press August). Speech characteristics of 8-year-old children with speech difficulties: Findings from a prospective population study. Journal of Communication Disorders.

ABSTRACT
Speech disorder that continues into middle childhood is rarely studied compared with speech disorder in the early years. Speech production in single words, connected speech and nonword repetition was assessed for 7,390 8-year-old children within the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). The majority (n=6,399) had typical speech and 50 of these children served as controls. The remainder were categorised as using common clinical distortions only (CCD, n=582) or speech difficulties (SDiff, n=409).  The samples from the CCD children were not analysed further. Speech samples from the SDiff and the control children were transcribed and analysed in terms of percentage consonants correct, error type and syllable structure. Findings were compared with those from children in the Shriberg et al. (1997) lifespan database (n=25). The 8-year-old children from ALSPAC in the SDiff and control groups achieved similar speech accuracy scores to the 8-year-old children in the lifespan database. The SDiff group had consistently lower scores than the ALSPAC control group, with the following measures most clearly differentiating the groups: single word task (percentage of substitutions and distortions), connected speech task (percentage of vowels correct PVC, percentage of omission of singletons and entire clusters, and stress pattern matches), nonword repetition task (PVC, percentage of entire clusters omitted, percentage of distortions, and percentage of stress pattern matches). Connected speech and nonword samples provide useful supplementary data for identifying older children with atypical speech.

A busy day

During the time I have been working on my Future Fellowship I don't think that any day has been exactly the same as any other. A research fellowship is not all about sitting at a computer and typing (as this blog demonstrates). Yesterday I didn't leave my office, but had multiple teleconferences and Skype calls. Here is how yesterday looked:
8:00am - check emails that have arrived overnight from all around the world
9:30am - listen to my PhD student's research presentation in Wagga Wagga (4 hours away)
11:00am - attend a meeting regarding the Collaborative Research Network in Wagga Wagga
12:30pm - discuss a book proposal with a colleague in Albury (6 hours away)
2:00pm - write a section of a book chapter and check the statistical analysis for a journal article
4:30pm - discuss student projects with 2 groups of students in Viet Nam
6:00pm - discuss reviewers' comments about a journal article with my masters' student who graduated last year in Sydney (3 hours away)
9:00pm - discuss the final tweaks of a journal article with colleagues in the USA and Sydney

Parents’ perspectives on the professional-child relationship and children’s functional communication

The following paper has been accepted for publication, based on Karla Washington's postdoctoral research conducted in Canada (I was one of her supervisors).

UPDATED REFERENCE (OCTOBER, 2012)

Washington, K. N., Thomas-Stonell, N., McLeod, S., & Warr-Leeper, G. (2012). Parents’ perspectives on the professional-child relationship and children’s functional communication following speech-language intervention. Canadian Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology / Revue canadienne d'orthophonie et d'audiologie, 36(3), 220-233.

Abstract

Background. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) use family-centred practices to implement intervention. Thus, consideration of family-based outcomes is encouraged. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health – Children and Youth version (ICF-CY) framework supports SLPs consideration of these outcomes (e.g., parental-perspectives on children’s Activities and Participation and Environmental Factors associated with speech-language intervention).

Purpose. To explore parents’ perspectives about: (a) the child-SLP relationship (Environmental Factors) and (b) children’s functional communication (Activities and Participation)

Method. Sixty-seven parents of preschoolers with communication disorders participated in this study. All 67 parents completed pre-intervention and post-intervention structured interviews about their children’s functional communication. Parents of preschoolers who received intervention (n=52) provided ratings and comments regarding the child-SLP relationship established during intervention with the clinician (n=7). Themes were identified using content analysis. Fifteen children were waitlist controls and did not receive intervention.

Results. Parents of preschoolers who received intervention reported significantly greater gains in children’s functional communication compared to those who did not. Most parents (94%) provided positive/very-positive perspectives about the child-SLP relationship. The child-SLP rapport and the SLPs’ professional competence were common themes identified in parents’ perspectives.

Conclusion: (a) Significant gains in preschool children’s functional communication occurred following speech and language intervention, and (b) factors such as the rapport established between the child and the SLP as well as the SLPs’ professionalism were considered by parents to be important factors for creating a positive child-SLP relationship during speech and language intervention.

Visitors from Việt Nam

This weekend we were very pleased to host two visitors from Pham Ngoc Thach University, Hồ Chí Minh City, Việt Nam. They were Lê Thi Thanh Xuân (Xuân) and Lê Khánh Điền (Điền). Xuân and Điền have almost completed their speech pathology course at Pham Ngoc Thach University and have received a Hoc Mai Foundation scholarship to study in Australia for 3 months. I taught them when I visited in 2011, and have been working with Xuân on her final project via Skype for a number of months. It was good to work face-to-face on our phonological analysis of Vietnamese children’s speech.

One of the most exciting aspects of the weekend was that it snowed in a nearby town. This was the first time that Xuân and Điền had ever seen snow! They also enjoyed many other Australian cultural experiences, including seeing kangaroos in the wild. They made us a fantastic Vietnamese dinner of phở and spring rolls. My family wished that they could stay for longer because we learned so much from their visit.

Điền and Xuân's first experience of snow

Wiradjuri: An extinct or endangered language?

To my surprise, when I looked into the Ethnologue, I found that my local Australian Aboriginal language - Wiradjuri - was listed as extinct.

I then looked at the following website that is dedicated to Endangered Languages
http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/
It is described as "the world through 3054 lenses: an online collaborative effort to protect global linguistic diversity". I noticed that Wiradjuri is listed as "critically endangered, with 3 native speakers worldwide in 1981." They provide a document defining endangerment and extinction.

I am not sure that Wiradjuri is extinct or critically endangered:

In 2009 I learned Wiradjuri for a year and received a Certificate 1 in Wiradjuri from the NSW Technical and Further Education Commission of Australia. During this course I met and learned from Wiradjuri speakers.

Last week, I asked the authors of the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children if they knew of children on their project that spoke Wiradjuri. They said that there were.

UPDATE 20th August 2012

Laura Bennetts-Kneebone, the linguist on LSIC has just told me about AUSTLANG: The Australian Indigenous Languages Database. It shows that in the 2006 Australian census there were reported to be 102 speakers of Wiradjuri.

I look forward to working further to find out more about the actual status of Wiradjuri

Listening to children with speech and language impairment: Implications for teachers of young children

The School of Teacher Education Research and Scholarship Brown Bag Seminar for Monday 13th August titled: "Listening to children with speech and language impairment: Implications for teachers of young children" was presented by Graham Daniel  and described work that we had undertaken together over the past few year. Graham presented a version of this talk via video-linkup to the Listening conference in Bristol in June.

Here is the abstract:

Children spend a large portion of their lives at school. Consequently, teachers play a major role in supporting their social, emotional and educational development. Children with speech and language impairment are at greater risk of reduced social, emotional, and educational outcomes. However, classroom teachers receive little training about how to support these children in the school environment and may be unaware of the implications of speech and language impairment on children's learning and schooling experience.  The aim of this paper was to better understand the lives of children with speech and language impairment and to provide implications for educational practice. Interviews were conducted with six children with speech and language impairment and 28 others including their parents, siblings, friends, teachers, and significant adults within their lives. The participants reported that these children experienced withdrawal and exclusion, had fewer friendships and were more disengaged in activities that involved language. These children’s experiences may have considerable implications for children’s social, emotional and learning (particularly literacy) outcomes. The children used a range of strategies and support networks (particularly siblings) to participate within the school environment. The insights garnered from considering these children’s lives can inform teachers’ provision of an inclusive learning environment to support children’s socialisation, encourage diverse ways of communicating, and maximise learning opportunities.

Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC)

My colleagues and I from Charles Sturt University, Queensland University of Technology, and Monash University worked in Canberra from 9-11 August with members of Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FAHCSIA) to learn about the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC). LSIC is an initiative of the Australian government that parallels the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC).  What an amazing dataset of valuable information about Australia's Indigenous children! The information about language and cultural heritage is so comprehensive. I can't wait to work with this dataset.

 The goals of this Excellence in Research in Early Years Education Collaborative Research Network event were:

1. To develop sound theoretical and practical understandings of the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC);

2. To explore how LSIC might inform research being undertaken by Collaborative Research Network (CRN) members;

3. To consider how CRN members might interrogate the data available through LSIC to inform social justice issues in early years education research; and

4. To build skills in working with the LSIC database and other relevant databases.

LSIC staff, Wendy, Jason Brandrup, and Fiona Skelton with Sharynne

Travelling through Australia!

 Traveling from Bathurst to Canberra today, Sarah Verdon and I experienced light snow, a stunning sunset, and a mob of sheep!

Essential support

I am very fortunate to have two excellent research assistants to support my research endeavours. Sarah Verdon and Alice Whitfield undertake multitudinous diverse tasks to ensure that the research work I undertake is the best quality possible. I don't know what I would do without them!

Alice Whitfield and Sarah Verdon ready for work!

Today, I also received my new computer (I have been having major difficulties since May 8). Three months without a reliable, functioning computer has made me realise just how dependent I am on my computer; particularly the fact that it stores hundreds of gigabytes of my work in one accessible location. I am really looking forward to putting all of the data I have generated over the past 3 months into one location (14.2GB!). As of today, I have 546 emails that I have been unable to answer via my iPhone, or without accessing data from my computer. It will take a little while to get through them, but I am glad that many of my colleagues in the northern hemisphere have been on summer holidays, so some of them have not been so urgent.

Visitors from Japan

This week a delegation from Ohkuma, Japan visited my hometown of Bathurst. Bathurst has had an ongoing sister city relationship with Ohkuma for over 20 years. Last year, we were devastated to hear of the earthquake and tsunami that meant that residents of Ohkuma had to leave their homes, and establish a new city in a different location. Many residents of Ohkuma worked in the Fukushima Number 1 nuclear power plant that was damaged by the disaster.

In March last year, I was honoured to lead a service to remember the people of Japan, and Ohkuma (see blog posting: http://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com.au/2011/03/memorial-service-for-people-of-ohkuma.html)

On Sunday morning (5 August, 2012), the following people from Ohkuma visited Bathurst Uniting Church to meet with the organizers of the memorial service:

Mr Toshihide Takeuchi - Superintendent of Education
Mr Hideatsu Matsunaga - Ohkuma Town Councillor
Mr Jun Yoshida - Chief of the Board of Education Section
Mr Yutaka Hatanaka - English Teacher, Ohkuma Junior High School
Councillor Monica Morse - Bathurst City Council
and other members of the Bathurst Sister City Committee.

Mr Toshihide Takeuchi (Superintendent of Education Ohkuma), Professor Sharynne McLeod, Councillor Monica Morse (Bathurst City Council), Rev. 'Oto Faiva (Bathurst Uniting Church)

The delegation from Ohkuma, Japan visiting the location of last years' memorial service

On Monday evening (6 August, 2012), the Mayor of Bathurst hosted a reception to welcome the Ohkuma delegation.
The Western Advocate wrote about the visit here: "Sister city's delegates bring heartfelt thanks"

June-July 2012 Summary

AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH COUNCIL FUTURE FELLOWSHIP UPDATE
‘Speaking my language: International speech acquisition in Australia’
Written by Kim Woodland, Research Institute for Professional Practice, Learning and Education for the August 2012 RIPPLE Update

Members of the International Expert Panel
on Multilingual Children's Speech

In mid-June, Sharynne travelled to Toronto in Canada to attend the launch of a new outcome measure for communicative participation. FOCUS: Focus on Outcomes of Children Under Six, is a parent and clinician-report measure framed around the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). Sharynne opened the two-day conference with a presentation titled Children’s speech, language and communication: Learning from the WHO’s focus on functioning and participation.

She then flew to Bristol, where the University of the West of England hosted a one-day conference on Listening to children and young people with speech, language and communication needs. Sharynne presented the keynote address, and the CSU Children draw talking art exhibition was displayed. During her week in Bristol, she also visited the Speech and Language Therapy Research Unit, where she met with staff, students and visitors about a range of research projects.

Next stop was Ireland, where Sharynne visited University College Cork, and met with colleagues who are using the Growing Up in Ireland longitudinal study data to consider prevalence of speech and language impairment in 9-year-old children in Ireland. The researchers are also comparing their data with results published from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. While in Cork, Sharynne chaired an international expert panel on multilingual children's speech. As a result, the panel will draft a position paper on multilingual children’s speech. She also attended the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association Conference (she is Vice President of the Association), where she co-presented three papers and two posters with her international colleagues and research students Kate Crowe and Rebekah Lockart.

Back in Bathurst in July, Sharynne co-presented a seminar with Dr Sarah McDonagh to the Bathurst Child and Family Network titled Helping children succeed through speech, language, and literacy. The three-hour seminar was attended by over fifty early childhood education staff, speech pathologists, and community service staff.

Finally, Speech Pathology Australia has invited Sharynne to present the prestigious Elizabeth Usher Memorial Lecture at their 2013 conference to be held on the Gold Coast in June. Gail Mulcair, CEO of Speech Pathology Australia, says Sharynne’s invitation was “overwhelmingly supported by all of Council and is an acknowledgement of [her] extensive knowledge, expertise and contribution to the profession.” She will also receive the Award for 2013 which will be presented at the conference.

For more information, please visit Sharynne’s blog: Speaking my languages.

Australia's changing linguistic landscape revealed in census data

Sarah Verdon (my PhD student) has been comparing the 2006 and 2011 Australian census figures for the languages spoken by Australian people:

"In the 2006 census, 21.5% of the population indicated that English was not the primary language spoken at home. The main other languages used, in order, were Italian (1.6%), Greek (1.3%), Arabic (1.2%), Cantonese (1.2%), Mandarin (1.1%) (Department of Immigration and Citizenship, 2008).

In the 2011 census, 23.2% of the population indicated that English was not the primary language spoken at home. This was an increase from 21.5% at the 2006 census. The main other languages used, in order, were Mandarin (1.6%),  Italian (1.4%), Arabic (1.3%) Cantonese (1.2%), and Greek (1.2%) (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012)."

Census year	2006	2011
English was not the primary language spoken at home	21.5%	23.2%
Main other language
Italian	1.6%	1.4%
Greek	1.3%	1.2%
Arabic	1.2%	1.3%
Cantonese	1.2%	1.2%
Mandarin	1.1%	1.6%

Exciting news: Elizabeth Usher Lecture and Award

Speech Pathology Australia has just announced that I will be presenting the Elizabeth Usher Memorial Lecture and will receive the Award for 2013. The lecture will be presented at the Speech Pathology Australia National Conference to be held at the Gold Coast in June next year. I am so honoured to have been invited to present this lecture and receive this award.

For details about the conference: http://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/news-and-events/2013-national-conference

Helping children succeed: Presentation to Bathurst Child and Family Network

Today (30 July, 2012) Dr Sarah McDonagh and I were invited to present a 3 hour seminar to the Bathurst Child and Family Network titled "Helping Children Succeed Through Speech, Language, and Literacy". Over 50 early childhood education staff, speech pathologists, and community service staff traveled from Bathurst, Orange, Cowra, Mudgee, Forbes, Portland, and Lithgow for the seminar. Lavinia Gibbs began the day with a welcome to country that reminded us of the Wiradjuri nation who's land we were meeting on and the oral traditions of the nation. I followed by speaking about children's speech and language acquisition then Sarah talked about promoting reading from birth, through preschool and into the school years. The enthusiastic participants were keen to take away ideas to use when working with families and children within their communities. Thank you to Annette, Jenell and Karen for organising such a great day.  

Bathurst Child and Family Network seminar participants
(with Dr Sarah McDonagh on the right)

Professorial forum at CSU

Today (25 July, 2012) I participated in the Charles Sturt University Professorial Forum held in Bathurst. The professors within CSU meet three times a year to discuss issues relating to the university, community, and the world. During our meeting topics we discussed included teaching, research, professional practice, finance and resources, and copyright issues. The meeting was followed by dinner with the Chancellor, Vice Chancellor and members of the University Council.