American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Board of Directors

Congratulations to my long-time colleague Julie D. Malone, CCC-SLP who has just been announced as Board Member at Large in Speech-Language Pathology for after her election to the 2025 Board of Directors of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. https://www.asha.org/news/2024/2024-board-of-directors-election-results/ Julie came from the US as a volunteer to work with me at The University of Sydney over 20 years ago. Congratulations Julie.

Child Language Teaching and Therapy editorial board meeting

Tonight I attended the annual Child Language Teaching and Therapy (CLTT) editorial board meeting. 

One interesting topic that was covered included the use of AI in publishing: https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/using-ai-in-peer-review-and-publishing.

There was a great discussion about sourcing and incentivising reviewers.

I am excited to work with CLTT to initiate a special issue based on my summer lecture. The lecture was sold out - and apparently there has been a lot of discussion throughout the world about it. The recorded version of the talk will be uploaded on the CLTT website soon.

Research higher degree students are great

It's time I had another blog about my research higher degree students. I love working with them. This week: 

• Suzanne Hopf and I met with Holly McAlister to discuss her ethics variation, her paper being accepted at the ASHA convention, and her ongoing work. 
• I met with Sarah Bartlett to work on her PhD endorsement document and plans.
• Libbey Murray, Julian Grant and I sent back a draft of Cathie Matthews' thesis. Cathie is having another writing week - so we have worked on her updated literature review and results tables.
• I met with Kate Margetson to finalise her thesis being included in the CSU library, her synopsis for her graduation, and her postdoctoral plans.
•  We've also submitted a number of conference abstracts too.
  

Sarah B and Sharynne

Cathie and Sharynne

Holly, Sharynne and Suzanne

RHRI team preparation for our presentation

Today our RHRI team have met online to finalise our first presentation to the Orange Aboriginal Medical Service (OAMS) tomorrow. We are collaborating on the research titled "Evidence-informed practice development in rural Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations: An action research approach – Phase 1 and 2". Our substudy is titled "Improving access to speech pathology services for rural children with speech, language and communication needs".

Dr Benedict Osei Asibey, Dr Hazel Dalton, Dr Liz Pressick, Emily-Jane Woodhead, Prof Sharynne McLeod

Children on campus - Scoping review + preparing for ethics

Today we had two meetings to advance our work about children on campus.

This morning, our review team (Carolyn Gregoric, Suzanne Hopf, Claudio Dionigi and I) worked on the discussion of our paper that includes a scoping review of international literature and rapid review of Austrailan university policies and guidance documents.

Carolyn, Suzanne, Claudio and Sharynne

This afternoon, our broader group met to discuss writing the ethics application for undertaking research to co-create The Treehouse (virtual and physical) and include children as research participants in our new Children's Voices Centre.

ECV2024 Scientific Review Committee

The abstracts for the ECV2024 Conference are due on 29th July - so today we had the ECV2024 Scientific Review Committee meeting and learned how to review abstracts.

ECV2024 Scientific Review Committee chairs: Dr Suzanne Hopf, Prof Sharynne McLeod, Dr Leanne Gibbs

Mentoring - Congratulations Belinda on achieving most of your mentoring goals by July!

Congratulations A/Prof Belinda Cash on submitting a grant yesterday, finalising 5 projects, having 3 papers accepted in 2024, 3 under review, and 5 in draft mode. I am really proud of your management strategies to make a huge difference in the area of in rural mental health and ageing. I also learn a lot from our conversations.

Preparing our new research with Tasmania

Today Dr Nicola Ivory and I spent time working on our invited research proposal with an education department in Tasmania. It is such an exciting project.

Our VietSpeech team is writing a lot of chapters

The work of our VietSpeech team (https://www.csu.edu.au/research/vietspeech/overview) continues to have impact across the world. We have been invited to write a number of different book chapters based on our research. We are currently working on these chapters:

• Tran, V. H., Margetson, K., Pham, B., Verdon, S., McLeod, S., Blake, H. L., & Faulks, S. (in preparation). Vietnamese English. In Y. Holt, K. N. Washington, & E. Babatsouli (Eds.) Linguistic varieties in North America: A primer for speech and language practitioners. Multilingual Matters.
• Margetson, K., McLeod, S., & Verdon, S. (in preparation). Diagnosing speech sound disorders in multilingual children who speak Vietnamese and English. In K. N. Washington, K. Crowe, T Másdóttir (Eds.). Diagnosing speech sound disorders in multilingual children. Routledge.

These chapters have just been accepted for publication:

• Margetson, K., McLeod, S., Verdon, S., Tran, V. H., & Phạm, B. (2025). English + Vietnamese speech development. In S. McLeod (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of speech development in languages of the world. Oxford University Press.
• Phạm, B. & Margetson, K., McLeod, S. + Tran, V. H. & Verdon, S. (2025). Vietnamese speech development. In S. McLeod (Ed.). The Oxford handbook of speech development in languages of the world. Oxford University Press.

Dr Van Tran, Prof Sharynne McLeod, Dr Helen Blake,
Dr Ben Phạm, Dr Kate Margetson, A/Prof Sarah Verdon

These chapters have been published in 2024:

• Tran, V. H., McLeod, S., Verdon, S., Margetson, K., & Phạm, B. (2024). Vietnamese-Australian families: Children’s language competence and home language maintenance. In L. Mahony, S. McLeod, A. Salamon, & J. Dwyer (Eds.), Early childhood voices: Children, families, professionals (pp. 135-150). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56484-0_1015 
• 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

Great strides made at OAMS today

Today was a wonderful day of big steps towards pulling together some of the threads of our research. 

• First, we had a wonderful meeting with our research partner Ebony Hay where we worked together to create/trial/assess the first set of resources we have purchased for OAMS using our RHRI grant money (and advice from listening to staff at OAMS, other ACCHOs and others who are supporting Indigenous children's speech, language and communication). 
• Next we had lunch with Liz Pressick to talk about the overarching research at OAMS regarding continuous quality improvement. 
• Then we met with Anna Blackie (OAMS-Allied Health) and Bonnie from SARRAH about the Allied Health Assistant program.

Emily-Jane Woodhead, Anna Blackie, Sharynne McLeod, Sarah Bartlett (online)

Emily-Jane Woodhead, Liz Pressick, Sharynne

Emily-Jane Woodhead, Ebony Hay, Sharynne McLeod

Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World - Nearly finished

I am close to finishing the Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World. Every spare moment is spent finalising this important book. 

I have just finished writing the abstract for the book:

The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World provides a comprehensive introduction to the study of children’s speech development. Bringing together 172 of the world’s leading scholars, the Handbook provides a thorough and updated overview of children’s speech development in 49 languages: Afrikaans, Akan, Arabic, Azerbaijani/Azeri Turkish, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, Flemish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew (Israeli), Hungarian, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Jamaican Creole, Japanese, Kurdish, Laki, Maltese, Mandarin/Putonghua, Māori, Norwegian, Persian/Farsi, Polish, Portuguese, Samoan, Sesotho, Setswana, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, Tamil, Thai, Tok Pisin, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, Walpiri, Welsh, Xhosa/isiXhosa, Zapotec, Zulu/isiZulu. While each chapter discusses varieties and dialects of the language of focus, specific chapters expand knowledge about the dialects of Arabic, English, French, Greek, Portuguese, and Spanish. Considerable effort was undertaken to identify and include chapters about languages spoken by First Nations people, lesser known, and minority languages.

The Handbook contains 80 chapters, beginning with five overview chapters, then the subsequent 75 chapters use a consistent template so that languages and dialects can be compared. The Handbook celebrates, respects, and preserves the uniqueness and integrity of different languages and dialects. Readers can identify common and unique elements of children’s typical speech development across languages and dialects. It provides a platform for accessing information about assessments and interventions as well as anatomical and diagnostic terminology for languages and dialects. The Handbook is an ideal resource for students and professionals in the fields of speech-language pathology, phonetics, applied linguistics, and related degrees such as applied English language and TESOL/TEFL or for anyone with a love of languages.

Here is the final table of contents

1.    Children’s speech development around the world: An introduction
2.    Cultural considerations regarding children’s speech development
3.    Articulatory and phonological foundations of children’s speech development
4.    Speech assessment of children’s home languages (SACHL): A clinical protocol
5.    Researching children’s speech development
6.    Afrikaans speech development
7.    Akan speech development
8.    Arabic (Egyptian) speech development
9.    Arabic (Kuwaiti) speech development
10.    Arabic (Lebanese) speech development
11.    Azerbaijani/Azeri Turkish speech development
12.    Bulgarian speech development
13.    Cantonese speech development
14.    Danish speech development
15.    Dutch speech development
16.    English (African American) speech development
17.    English (Appalachian) speech development
18.    English (Australian) speech development
19.    English (Cajun) speech development
20.    English (Canadian) speech development
21.    English (English) speech development
22.    English (Fiji) speech development
23.    English (General American) speech development
24.    English (Irish) speech development
25.    English (New Zealand) speech development
26.    English (Scottish) speech development
27.    English (South African) speech development
28.    English + Cantonese speech development
29.    English + French speech development
30.    English + Greek speech development
31.    English + Spanish speech development  
32.    English + Vietnamese speech development
33.    Finnish speech development
34.    Flemish speech development
35.    French (Canadian) speech development
36.    French (France) speech development
37.    French (Swiss) speech development  
38.    German speech development
39.    Greek (Cypriot) speech development
40.    Greek (Standard) speech development
41.    Hebrew (Israeli) speech development  
42.    Hungarian speech development
43.    Icelandic speech development
44.    Irish speech development  
45.    Italian speech development  
46.    Jamaican Creole speech development  
47.    Japanese speech development  
48.    Kurdish speech development
49.    Laki speech development
50.    Maltese speech development  
51.    Mandarin/Putonghua speech development  
52.    Māori speech development
53.    Norwegian speech development  
54.    Persian/Farsi speech development
55.    Polish speech development  
56.    Portuguese (Brazilian) speech development  
57.    Portuguese (European) speech development  
58.    Samoan speech development  
59.    Sesotho speech development
60.    Setswana speech development
61.    Slovak speech development  
62.    Slovenian speech development  
63.    Spanish (Andalusian) speech development  
64.    Spanish (Castilian) speech development  
65.    Spanish (Chilean) speech development  
66.    Spanish (Mexican) speech development  
67.    Spanish (Peruvian) speech development  
68.    Swedish speech development
69.    Tagalog speech development
70.    Tamil speech development
71.    Thai speech development
72.    Tok Pisin speech development
73.    Turkish speech development  
74.    Urdu speech development
75.    Vietnamese speech development  
76.    Walpiri speech development
77.    Welsh speech development  
78.    Xhosa/isiXhosa speech development
79.    Zapotec speech development  
80.    Zulu/isiZulu speech development
 

Working on the book while on holidays

ECV2024 - Latest statistics and meetings

Here are the latest statistics

• 326 registrations from 38 countries: Australia, Bangladesh, Benin, Brazil, Burundi, Canada, Denmark, Ethiopia, Fiji, France, Germany, Hong Kong (SAR China), Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Kuwait, Malaysia, Malta, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, USA
  

Four keynotes are confirmed

• Prof. Tony Dreise (Australia), Pro Vice-Chancellor First Nations Engagement, Charles Sturt University. 
• Prof Elizabeth Shuey (USA), a policy analyst at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), where she works primarily on issues related to early childhood. 
• Professor Jenny Gibson (UK), Faculty of Education, The University of Cambridge, UK 
• Dr Tamara Cumming (Australia), Macquarie University and Charles Sturt University, Australia

Submitted

• 15 abstracts (due 29 July)
  
• 15 drawings (due 23 September)

Publications

• Two books will be published based on papers from ECV2022 and ECV2024 (Springer/Multilingual Matters)
  

New innovations

•  Special interest groups
• Multilingual presentations (in languages other than English)

We have been working on the ECV2024 website with Patrick McKenzie

Dr Carolyn Gregoric, Dr Helen Blake, Patrick McKenzie, Prof Sharynne McLeod

3MT Finals

Congratulations to Kate Margetson who is a Charles Sturt University 3MT finalist. It will be held on the Port Macquarie campus on Thursday 8 August 2024. Here are the CSU finalists:

• DIANE CASS - School of Social Work and Arts
• EBONY SCHOENFELD - School of Agricultural, Environmental and Veterinary Sciences
• KATE MARGETSON - School of Education
• KRYSTAL DACEY - School of Agricultural, Environmental and Veterinary Sciences
• MAHIR HABIB - School of Computing, Mathematics and Engineering
• MURRAY PARKER - School of Agriculture Environmental & Veterinary Sciences
• SARA ESMAEILI - School of Dentistry and Medical Sciences
• SHAUNNA MCTERNAN - School of Agricultural, Environmental and Veterinary Sciences
  

Here is the information from CSU: 

"Each year thousands of PhD candidates from across the world, including from our own Charles Sturt University, come together to explain to a non-expert audience in plain language the premise of their research, known as the “Three Minutes Thesis” 3MT © competition. In just 3-minutes, with one PowerPoint slide, doctoral students from across all faculties and disciplines at Charles Sturt will share their exciting research projects: research that will help to build stronger, healthier and more resilient communities for our future. The event will be judged by a panel of experts with the winner progressing to the Asia Pacific final in October."

Last year Dr Van Tran from our VietSpeech team was the people's choice winner.

 

Mentoring group - Editing a book

I have held regular mentoring meetings with two groups of colleagues to work on developing book proposals, then editing books as part of our Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research Group (ECIR). Our Springer book group met today (Sheena Elwick, Shukla Sikder, Lysa Dealtry) and our Multilingual Matters book group have just had their proposal accepted and we are about to meet to discuss the proposed contract from the publisher. 

Lysa Dealtry, Sharynne McLeod, Shukla Sikder, Sheena Elwick

Award: ASHA Certificate of Recognition for Outstanding Contributions in International Achievement

 I have just learned that I have been nominated for and received the following award:

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Certificate of Recognition for Outstanding Contributions in International Achievement

https://www.asha.org/news/2024/2024-asha-awards-recipients/

The award ceremony will take place in Seattle, WA, USA in December.

Celebrating CSU's Foundation Day and 35th birthday

Today, I joined my colleagues to celebrate 35 years of Charles Sturt University on Foundation Day. The university prioritizes the Wiradjuri phrase "Yindyamarra Winhanganha - embracing the wisdom of respectfully knowing how to live well in a world worth living in".

Sharon Sandry (Executive Assistant, DVC Academic), Dr Emmaline Lear (Research Office),
Vice Chancellor Renee Leon, Prof Sharynne McLeod

CSU Foundation day celebration

Discussing the future with Kate Crowe in Sydney

How wonderful to meet up with Kate Crowe during her brief visit to Sydney (from Iceland). We had time to catch up on our current work and to dream about the future. Sydney in winter did not disappoint either.

Sharynne and Kate

Thanks for the children's books in Faroese and Icelandic!

Attending the Blak Tie Ball for NAIDOC week

I was honoured to receive an invitation and attend the Blak Tie Ball last night to celebrate 20 years of the Orange Aboriginal Medical Service (OAMS https://oams.net.au/about/our-governance/) and NAIDOC week (National Aborigines and Islanders day Observance Committee). Prof Stan Grant provided an inspiring speech during the dinner. It was a great night of celebration about the achievements of the OAMS staff and community.

CEO Jamie Newman and Sharynne

Over 300 people attended

Prof Stan Grant provided an inspiring speeck

Sharynne, Sophie and Harry

Celebrating 20 years of OAMS

The video from the night was posted on Facebook in October 2024: https://www.facebook.com/Orangeaboriginalmedicalservice/videos and I made a brief appearance :)

Enjoying Biripai land during NAIDOC week

I have been enjoying Biripai land during NAIDOC week while I have been on holidays with my family and friends. Our holiday home was visited by a friendly koala (we called him Steve) and some feisty lorikeets (we called this one Bruce). 

Visit to Port Macquarie campus of CSU

Today I had the opportunity to visit the Port Macquarie campus of Charles Sturt University (CSU) and to finally meet Cherie Zischke in person. Cherie is an important member of our Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research Group (ECIR) and is a paediatric physiotherapy lecturer. Thanks for the warm welcome Cherie.