A systematic review of cross-linguistic and multilingual speech and language outcomes for children with hearing loss

The following manuscript has been accepted for publication

Crowe, K. & McLeod, S. (in press, December, 2012). A systematic review of cross-linguistic and multilingual speech and language outcomes for children with hearing loss. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 

ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study was to systematically review factors affecting the language, speech intelligibility, speech production, and lexical tone development of children with hearing loss who use spoken languages other than English. Relevant studies of children with hearing loss published between 2000 and 2011 were reviewed with reference to a) methodologies used, b) children’s outcomes, c) factors affecting children’s outcomes, and d) publication quality. The review included 117 studies describing 20 languages. Monolingual children were described in 109 and multilingual children were described in eight. Performance outcomes were frequently associated with earlier age of hearing loss diagnosis, intervention, amplification, and less severe hearing loss – a finding similar to studies of English-speaking children. Studies frequently did not report or include information about participant characteristics, blinding of researchers, and reliability. Cross-linguistic comparison of children’s outcomes across studies was not possible due to differences in the outcomes assessed, assessment and analysis methods, and participant characteristics. There is a need for cross-linguistic comparisons of the speech and language outcomes of children with hearing loss but there is little scope for this using existing published research. Few studies described the outcomes of multilingual children with hearing loss.

Early childhood development for Indigenous children

While in Sydney I attended a Closing the Gap Clearinghouse event titled: Early childhood development: Understanding the evidence to inform parenting, early learning programs, and access to services for Indigenous children. The Closing the Gap Clearinghouse is a clearinghouse for evidence-based research on overcoming disadvantage for Indigenous Australians. The event was chaired by Associate Professor Karen Martin from Griffith University.   

The papers that were presented were:

• Early learning programs that promote children’s developmental and educational outcome by Professor Linda Harrison (Charles Sturt University) and Associate Professor Sharon Goldfield (Centre for Community Child Health, Royal Children's Hospital and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute) 
• Parenting in the early years: Effectiveness of parenting support programs for Indigenous families by Dr Robyn Mildon (Parenting Research Centre)
• Improving access to urban and regional early childhood services by Dr Daryl Higgins (Australian Institute of Family Services)

Afterwards, members of the Collaborative Research Network in Early Years Education had lunch with Associate Professor Karen Martin from Griffith University who is the Deputy Chair of the steering committee for the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children. We had a rich conversation about the importance of Indigenous knowledge to understanding our world.

Front: Felicity McArdle (QUT), Karen Martin (Griffith U), Lysa Dealtry (CSU)
Back: Sarah Verdon, Linda Harrison, Sharynne McLeod (CSU)

Website wins Speechwoman site of the month award

The Multilingual Children's Speech website has won the Speechwoman site of the month award
"Multilingual Children's Speech
This is Speechwoman's final 'pick' for 2012, and what an amazing site it is! This freely accessible online resource is for SLPs/SLTs worldwide who have children who are learning to communicate in more than one language on their caseloads. The site includes The Multilingual Children with Speech Sound Disorders: Position Paper, information for over 40 languages, speech assessments, and a parent report measure entitled the Intelligibility in Context Scale. Developed by Sharynne McLeod and colleagues at Charles Sturt University, with contributions by fonoaudiólogas / logopedas / logopedists / logopédistes / orthophonistes / patóloga de habla y lenguaje / speech pathologists / speech-language pathologists / speech therapists / and speech and language therapists from around the world, the Multilingual Children's Speech is a great credit to all concerned. Wonderful! Merveilleux! ص.رائع, مدهش, عجيب, بديع , Wunderbar! Admirável! Дивовижний! Portentoso! Asombroso! Harika! Fantastisk! Ka rawe! Adori! Rhyfeddol!"

Australian Association for Research in Education conference

The joint International Conference of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) and the Asia Pacific Educational Research Association (APERA) has been held in Sydney from 2-6th December. The conference has also hosted the 2012 Focal Meeting of the World Education Research Association (WERA).

One symposium I really enjoyed attending was titled: "Implications of cultural and societal aspects for educational environments of children with disabilities in Austria, Thailand and Ethiopia" lead by
Gottfried Biewer from the University of Vienna. The presenters and discussant are pictured below.

L-R: Michelle Proyer, Michalea Kramann, Alemayehu Teklemariam,
Gottfried Biewer, Sharynne McLeod, Ilektra Spandagou

I was coauthor of the following presentations based on analyses of data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children

McLeod, S., Walker, S., Whiteford, C., & Harrison, L. J. (2012, December). The impact of bilingualism when 4- to 5-years-old on literacy, numeracy and social-emotional outcomes when 8- to 9-years-old. International Conference of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) and the Asia Pacific Educational Research Association (APERA). Sydney, Australia.

Verdon, S. & McLeod, S. (2012, December). Longitudinal and cross-sectional changes in the cultural and linguistic diversity of Australian children. International Conference of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) and the Asia Pacific Educational Research Association (APERA). Sydney, Australia.

Multilingual Children's Speech website: Page views!

The Multilingual Children's Speech website (www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech) has been live since 14th November. During November there were 4,363 page views, with the following countries being the top visitors:

• United States
• Slovenia
• Netherlands
• United Kingdom
• Japan

 Thanks to everyone for your interest in the site, and for your emails to let me know that it is useful to you in the work that you do.

Indigenous Australian children's speech and language competence

Footprints in Time: Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC) is a national study of approximately 1600 children. Over the past few weeks Sarah Verdon and I have been working with members of the Australian Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs: Laura Bennetts-Kneebone, Fiona Skelton, and Jason Brandrup. We have been analysing data from approximately 600 children in waves 1 and 3 of the child cohort (when the children were aged 3-5 and 5-7 years). These children spoke up to eight languages each including: English (wave 1: 91.2%, wave 3: 99.6%), Indigenous languages (wave 1: 24.4%, wave 3: 26.8%), and foreign languages (wave 1: 2.5%, wave 3: 5.4%). The children’s language environments were rich, with many family members and friends telling oral stories, reading books, and listening to the children read. We hope to submit a journal article about Indigenous children’s speech and language competence next year.