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| Dinner with the Bathurst speech pathologists to celebrate Speech Pathology Week |
Abstract: Children with speech and language difficulties typically wait for up to 12 months for speech-language pathology services in Australia, meaning that they may miss out on the benefits of early intervention. One of three areas of concern highlighted in the 2014 Australian Government Senate Inquiry into speech-language pathology services was “the long waiting lists in the public system” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2014, p. 5). In other areas of health care, individuals can experience feelings of stress, fear, and disempowerment while waiting. There is a lack of research around speech-language pathology waiting lists, including the experiences and impact that waiting has on children and families, how children are prioritised on waiting lists, and how to best support children and families on waiting lists. The proposed research comprises five studies aimed to address these gaps. Study 1 will explore experiences of waiting for speech-language pathology through analysing public submissions to the 2014 Australian Government Senate Inquiry. Study 2 will explore the experiences of parents/caregivers of children who have been on waiting lists for speech-language pathology. Study 3 will investigate how speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in Australia prioritise and support children with speech and language difficulties and their families on waiting lists. Study 4 will involve the development of an evidence-based, parent-friendly active waiting website to provide practical strategies and support to those on speech-language pathology waiting lists. Study 5 will compare the effectiveness of providing the website to families (intervention condition: active waiting) and standard practice (control condition: passive waiting) using a randomised controlled trial design. The findings of this research will inform practice regarding appropriate care for children and their families who are waiting for services, and empower children and families to engage in active waiting.
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| Nicole practiced her endorsement session with the Bathurst and Dubbo speech pathologists |
Deaf learners are a highly heterogeneous group who demonstrate varied levels of academic achievement and attainment. Most prior research involving this population has focused on factors facilitating academic success in young deaf children, with less attention paid to older learners. Recent studies, however, have suggested that while factors such as early cochlear implantation and early sign language fluency are positively associated with academic achievement in younger deaf children, they no longer predict achievement once children reach high school age. This study, involving data from 980 college-bound high school students with hearing loss, examined relations between academic achievement, communication variables (audiological, language), and use of assistive technologies (e.g., cochlear implants [CIs], FM systems) and other support services (e.g., interpreting, real-time text) in the classroom. Spoken language skills were positively related to achievement in some domains, while better sign language skills were related to poorer achievement in others. Among these college-bound students, use of CIs and academic support services in high school accounted for little variability in their college entrance examination scores.
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| Sally Thornton, Katrina Rohr, Angela Roberts, Emily Davis, Kate Miller, Nicole McGill and Sharynne |
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| Cath Teskera, Nicole McGill, and Carolynne Winbanks in Victoria |
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| The team hard at work |
The Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF, State of Victoria Department of Education, 2016) targets five key learning outcomes. This report contains a review of the fifth outcome: children are effective communicators. The development of communication skills begins at birth and is integral to a child’s self-expression, wellbeing, identity, sense of agency and capacity to make friends (State of Victoria Department of Education, 2016). Therefore, communication skills are essential for developing confident and creative individuals who can effectively navigate and participate in life in the twenty-first century and beyond. The following principles for assessing communicative competence have been identified in this review to inform practice:
1. Effective assessment of communication requires a clearly defined purpose.
2. A range of assessments may be required to develop a clear understanding of a child’s strengths and challenges since communication is multifaceted (including but not limited to speaking, listening, reading and writing).
3. Communication assessment can use both formal and informal methods.
4. Assessment of communication considers all languages and communication systems used by a child to gain a holistic understanding of a child’s communicative competence.
5. Effective assessment of communication is based on the input of multiple stakeholders including parents, early childhood professionals, health professionals and children.
6. Assessment of communication considers functionality and participation, not only competence in comparison to adult targets.
7. Assessment of communication is an opportunity for multidisciplinary collaboration.
A range of tools available to support early childhood professionals in their assessment of children’s communication have been identified within this review. These tools were selected to address the each of the key components of children as competent communicators across the full range of communicative skills that children develop from birth to eight years. Nineteen following tools to support early childhood professionals’ assessment of children’s communication are reviewed in this report.
The purpose of this review is to provide a comprehensive resource for early childhood professionals seeking to assess the communication of the children they work with. The review identifies appropriate communication assessment tools for use by early childhood professionals and outlines the areas of communication development that are addressed by the tools. The review provides an overview of the purpose and features of each tool and a discussion of its usefulness in assessing children’s communication. Early identification of communication needs is essential to supporting children’s long-term social and educational outcomes. It is hoped that this document will empower early childhood professionals with the knowledge to identify areas of children’s communication in need of assessment and the resources to confidently undertake these assessments.
Abstract: Toddlers with cleft palate are at risk of speech, language, velopharyngeal and hearing difficulties. That is, having a cleft palate may impact on many areas of a child’s life. One model that has been used to holistically describe how a child may be affected by a cleft palate is the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health – Child and Youth version (ICF-CY). Previous studies have applied the ICF-CY to children with speech impairment, as an assessment framework for working with young children with cleft palate, and to older children with cleft palate speech; however, no studies have investigated the experiences of toddlers with cleft palate in the context of this framework. The research so far has shown the extensive impact of the difference in the Body Structure (i.e., cleft palate) on children’s Body Functions (e.g., speech), Activities and Participation (e.g., communication, relationships). What has not been investigated is the impact of cleft palate early in children’s lives, as they participate in their homes and early childhood education centres.
The proposed research consists of three studies. Study 1 will describe the speech and language characteristics of 2-year-olds with cleft palate, using direct assessment of the children’s speech and language as well as play-based observations. Study 2 will investigate the impact of cleft palate on the lives of toddlers and their families. It will investigate the Activities and Participation of toddlers with cleft palate, and the experiences of their families and educators in caring for a child with a cleft through semi-structured interviews and questionnaires with families and educators of children with cleft palate. It will make use of the ICF-CY as a theoretical framework for the initial organisation of qualitative data before new themes are generated within the components of the ICF-CY. Study 3 will examine the current practices and aspirations of speech-language pathologists working with young children with cleft palate through semi-structured interviews, with a focus on those themes described by the families and educators in Study 2. The findings of this work will contribute to the research on the speech characteristics of young children with cleft palate, understanding the experiences of families of children with cleft palate, and how this understanding may be applied to provide holistic care for children with cleft palate, and their families by health and education professionals.
Ben Phạm's 2017 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Convention Poster presentation titled, "Assessing Vietnamese Children's Intelligibility", has been designated as a Meritorious Poster. Only 55 from 1895 posters received this accolade. It will be presented in LA in November. Congratulations Ben!
More than 20 per cent of Australians speak a language other than English at home. This presentation will highlight the benefits of multilingualism and provide insights from an international research program into how monolingual health professionals can successfully work with multilingual children and families.
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| Presenting in a session chaired by Professor Gail Whiteford |
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| Presenting recent data from the Australian Census about changes in the top 5 languages spoken between 2001 and 2016 |
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| Ed Santow, Gail Mulcair, Alastair McEwan, Sharynne McLeod, Kirrie Ballard |
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| Prof Sharynne McLeod, Prof Kirrie Ballard, Gail Mulcair (CEO, Speech Pathology Australia) |
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| Tweet from the Australian Human Rights Commissioner |
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| 3MT finalists and judges (Helen is third from right) |
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| Suzanne and Sharynne in Fiji |
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| Sharynne singing with the Kindergarten children |
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| Sharynne about to show the school children how to throw frisbees |
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| The opening of the playground |
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| Head of School Carol Burgess presenting Dr Kate Crowe with a gift from CSU to congratulate her on her Fulbright Fellowship |
Dr Kate Crowe left Charles Sturt University in August 2016 to become a Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholar at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester Institute of Technology (NY). The Fulbright program is the flagship international educational exchange program of the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. After spending nearly a year immersed in U.S. culture, Kate has returned to share her experiences of life and research. In this talk she will describe the research she has conducted to better understand how students with hearing loss process language and how the Fulbright program encourages collaborative research and understanding. She will also share stories about creating cultural bridges, and what happens when these bridges don’t quite meet in the middle. For example, why a potato may not be a vegetable (and how this confuses your research results)? What happens to squirrels in winter? What exactly is a cheesehead?
Kate is an Adjunct Research Fellow at Charles Sturt University (Australia) and a member of the International Expert Panel on Multilingual Children’s Speech. Kate has worked as a speech pathologist, academic, and researcher in a range of early childhood, school, and tertiary settings. Her research and clinical interests include communication choice and development for children with hearing loss, particularly children who use sign, live in multilingual environments, and/or have complex communication needs. Kate currently works with college-aged students who are deaf and is exploring linguistic and cognitive factors which inform how we teach deaf learners.
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| Members of the Sound Start Study Team (+Yvonne Wren and Paul White) |