This morning was the IALP Child Speech Committee Online Panel: Terminology in Child Speech Sound Disorder. This second panel was titled:
SSD and CAS – How should motor planning disorders be classified in children?
Our VietSpeech team have been contacted by Masako Fukui and Sheila Pham who are developing a new SBS podcast "My Bilingual Family" that focusses on parents trying to raise their kids bilingually (or multilingually). The podcast will be in English, but parts of it will be translated into other languages and broadcast on SBS Radio.
Masako Fukui and Sheila Pham (https://www.sheilatakeabow.com/) have just finished another podcast/radio series for ABC Radio National (RN) called Tongue Tied and Fluent, which just last month won an international award. Tongue Tied and Fluent was directed at a much wider audience.
Here is the link to Tongue Tied and Fluent: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/earshot/features/tongue-tied-and-fluent/
Dr Van Tran from our VietSpeech team is also hosting an SBS podcast in Vietnamese to support home language maintenance called "Let's maintain Vietnamese together" https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2021/11/sbs-radio-program-lets-maintain.html
Speech Pathology Week but postponed because of Melbourne’s most recent lockdown, the Speech Pathology Australia forum to discuss ‘Communication is everyone’s right’ was rescheduled. On Thursday 2 December, on the eve of the International Day of People with Disability, the Association hosted a forum around the theme for this year’s Speech Pathology Week: ‘Communication is everyone's right!’ The panel discussion was facilitated by the Association’s National President, Tim Kittel. The panelists for the forum were:
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| Linda Mahony, Sharynne McLeod, Andi Salamon, Jenny Dwyer |
Congratulations Van on the publication of this important paper from your PhD:
Tran, V. H., Wang, C., McLeod, S., & Verdon, S. (2021). Vietnamese–Australian children’s language proficiency and use. International Journal of Bilingualism, 25(6), 1735-1763. https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069211034587
The data from this paper were collected as part of our Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (VietSpeech).
We are so close to the end of our Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (VietSPeech). We have set aside another week to work on finishing 8 journal articles and putting our VietSpeech workbook online so that people can access it. We are excited about another busy week.
This week an important paper has been published by authors in the US who have validated the Intelligibility in Context Scale (McLeod, Harrison & McCormack, 2012) with the gold standard measure of transcription intelligibility scores. Here is the article and abstract: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/11/11/1540
Soriano, J. U., Olivieri, A., & Hustad, K. C. (2021). Utility of the Intelligibility in Context Scale for predicting speech intelligibility of children with cerebral palsy. Brain Sciences, 11(11), 1540. https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/11/11/1540
The Intelligibility in Context Scale (ICS) is a widely used, efficient tool for describing a child’s speech intelligibility. Few studies have explored the relationship between ICS scores and transcription intelligibility scores, which are the gold standard for clinical measurement. This study examined how well ICS composite scores predicted transcription intelligibility scores among children with cerebral palsy (CP), how well individual questions from the ICS differentially predicted transcription intelligibility scores, and how well the ICS composite scores differentiated between children with and without speech motor impairment. Parents of 48 children with CP, who were approximately 13 years of age, completed the ICS. Ninety-six adult naïve listeners provided orthographic transcriptions of children’s speech. Transcription intelligibility scores were regressed on ICS composite scores and individual item scores. Dysarthria status was regressed on ICS composite scores. Results indicated that ICS composite scores were moderately strong predictors of transcription intelligibility scores. One individual ICS item differentially predicted transcription intelligibility scores, and dysarthria severity influenced how well ICS composite scores differentiated between children with and without speech motor impairment. Findings suggest that the ICS has potential clinical utility for children with CP, especially when used with other objective measures of speech intelligibility.
Today I was interviewed by Chris Tan from Prime 7 television regarding my ASHA Honors Award. The interview and footage from my work was presented within the 6pm news bulletin.
Charles Sturt University has a new system to calculate Research Productivity Index (RPI). https://research.csu.edu.au/performance/institutional/charles-sturt-university-research-productivity-index-rpi. Today the Associate Dean Research contacted me to let me know that I had been nominated for a Faculty Research Award because:
Your RPI Category A points accumulated from 2018-2020 was 1,117 points: • 39 included publications • 990 category A RPI publications points • 127 HERDC income category A RPI points from $353,193 generated • +997 above minimum Level E category A RPI points expectation
I met with Dr. Karla Washington today. We celebrated her recent ASHA Fellow award.
We are currently working on a few book chapters together.
I am the editor of The [Oxford] Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World. Here are the languages that will be the focus of the first group chapters where the authors have agreed to participate. I love the range of languages!
This evening I attended the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia New Fellows' Presentations https://events.humanitix.com/2021-new-fellows-presentations
I really enjoyed presentations from my education colleagues Professor Susan Danby (QUT) and Professor Marilyn Fleer (Monash).
Here is the description of the event
Each year, the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia elects the most distinguished social scientists in Australia as Fellows. These New Fellows will join the ranks of over 700 of Australia’s leading researchers and professionals across the social science disciplines. This event will provide an opportunity to welcome the 2021 New Fellows and to recognise their outstanding contributions to the social sciences. Each New Fellow will have three minutes to discuss their research in an engaging and informative presentation.
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| 2021 ASSA Fellow, Prof Susan Danby |
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| 2021 ASSA Fellow, Prof Marilyn Fleer |
CSU has a process called RED: Recognising Excellence Daily. Today I recieved a RED award from the Provost thanking me for my work on the Professorial Promotions Committee. It was a privilege to serve on the committee. CSU employs some fantastic people.
On behalf of the University and Academic Portfolio, and as Chair of the Academic Promotions Professorial Committee, I wanted to personally thank you for the valuable contributions you made to this year’s Academic Promotions process. As you are well aware, Academic Promotions provide an important means of encouraging and recognising staff development and rewarding those who have demonstrated and sustained excellence. The significant time and support you have committed to this process not only benefits our academics and their careers, it also strengthens our University, the reputation of our University, and our ability to continue achieving our mission and changing the lives of our students and communities for the better. This year we had a terrific outcome, with 78 per cent of applications successful. This is an impressive 15 per cent increase on last year and could not have been achieved without the hard work and dedication of our Promotions Committees.
I trust you enjoyed the process and I hope you will continue to contribute to our Promotions Committees in the years to come.
Kind regards John Germov, Provost
We are nearing the end of our VietSpeech grant and the 2021 academic year. We have achieved so much - and still have more to write up and publish. Today, we decided we are happy, busy, and tired.
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| Kate, Sharynne, Audrey, Van and Sarah |
Today I was interviewed by Sally Bryant for ABC Radio (Riverina) regarding my ASHA Honors as a result of the CSU news item: https://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/unique-international-honour-for-speech-and-language-acquisition-expert. We mostly spoke about the impact of wearing masks and other aspects of COVID-19 restrictions on communication - important topics.
The Awards Ceremony celebrates the highest achievements and excellence in the professions. Awards presented this evening include the Honors of the Association—ASHA's most prestigious award, which recognizes lifetime achievement—and ASHA Fellows, whose recipients' contributions are the cornerstones of the communication sciences and disorders (CSD) professions. ASHA will present additional awards to honor other members who have also contributed to the professions and to ASHA. The 2020 awardees will also receive a special recognition from 2020 ASHA President Theresa H. Rodgers.
ASHA has 218,000 members and awardees are nominated then voted on by a committee. The list of 2021 awards recipients is here: https://www.asha.org/about/awards/2021-awards-recipients/
I was one of 11 colleagues receiving ASHA Honors in 2021 and was the first ASHA International Affiliate to receive the award since it began in 1944.
The CSU News story about my award is here: https://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/unique-international-honour-for-speech-and-language-acquisition-expert
Here is the video that ASHA created to announce my award at the ceremony: https://vimeo.com/644073807
Here is the Awards Ceremony booklet: https://asha-convention.s3.amazonaws.com/2020-and-2021-Convention-Awards-Booklet.pdf
My colleagues Elise Baker, Marie Ireland, and Karla Washington and other colleagues from the US were awarded ASHA Fellows at the ceremony.
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Dr Elise Baker (ASHA Fellow) and Prof Sharynne McLeod (ASHA Honoree)
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Unfortunately Elise and I were unable to travel from Australia for the ceremony, so watched online and celebrated with our families and friends. We were pleased that Lynn Williams (ASHA President) and Rebecca McCauley accepted our awards on our behalf.
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| ASHA President Lynn Williams accepted my award on my behalf (and I was surprised she had a cutout of my head!) |
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| ASHA Honors recipients |
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| Elise Baker's ASHA Fellow Award was accepted by Rebecca McCauley |
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| After the ceremony, Elise and I had an online Zoom celebration with friends and colleagues from Vietnam, Iceland, UK, US and Australia |
Marie Ireland was backstage with the other ASHA awardees.
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| Tommie Robinson (ASHA Honors), Marie Ireland (ASHA Fellow) with cutouts of Karla Washington and myself! |
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| Stephen Camarata (ASHA Honors) with my head! |
Here is the recording of the ASHA Awards ceremony: https://stream.asha.org/2021-convention-awards# Log on ID: 12070449. My award was accepted by the ASHA President, Professor Lynn Williams and occurred between 0:43 – 0:47 minutes and 1:21 – 1:23. Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger’s award was introduced 1:23 ff, then at 1:27ff
It has been a busy few days with all of our ASHA presentations going on (https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2021/11/american-speech-language-hearing.html) as well as responding to all of the lovely emails, tweets, texts and phonecalls.
Today I attended the CSU Professors’ Forum. In addition to the conversation amongst the professors we heard from Rick Wilmot (Chief Operations Officer), Brad Booth (Executive Director of Division of Strategy, Marketing and Analysis) and Jason White (Director, Research Services and Dean of Graduate Studies) who provided an update on the University strategy.
Prof Riley Dionigi encouraged us to join the Australian Association of University Professors http://www.professoriate.org/
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention is on this week in Washington, DC. I am disappointed that I am unable to be in Washington to catch up with my colleagues from across the world. I really miss the networking and face-to-face interactions. There are over 10,000 attendees (5,200 onsite and 5,200 virtual). There are over 660 sessions and 1000 posters across 31 topic areas.
I stayed up until 12:30am to watch Lynn Williams, President of ASHA open the convention.
There have been a lot of people who have already viewed our presentations via the Virtual Library platform and many people have sent emails indicating that they have learned from the presentations and have asked for copies of the slides. This is great - but it is not the same as having conversations with these people. I hope I can attend next year.
A call has been extended throughout the world for expressions of interest for papers to be considered for a special issue of the International Jounal of Speech-Language Pathology (IJSLP) focussing on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
https://speechpathologyaustralia.cld.bz/IJSLP-special-edition-EOI
Special issue title: Communication, Swallowing, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Journal: International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology (http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/iasl20/current)
Guest Editors: Professor Sharynne McLeod, Charles Sturt University, Australia Professor Julie Marshall, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Expressions of interest due Monday 13 December, 2021 to Sharynne McLeod (smcleod@csu.edu.au)
The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (https://sdgs.un.org/goals) “provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future… In order to make the 2030 Agenda a reality, broad ownership of the SDGs must translate into a strong commitment by all stakeholders to implement the global goals.” (UN, 2015).
Each of the 17 SDGs impacts the world’s citizens, including people with speech, language and communication needs, people with dysphagia, and those who work with them (e.g., speech-language pathologists, audiologists, psychologists, teachers, doctors, lawyers). The International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology will join the world to work with the United Nations to implement the SDGs by publishing this special issue, acknowledging that communication and swallowing are important for “peace and prosperity for people and the planet (UN, 2015)”
This special issue of the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology will include 2,500-3,000 word commentary articles/ essays that address at least one SDG and its relationship to people who experience communication and swallowing disability. Commentaries must be supported by (a) new evidence and/or (b) evidence-based literature and will be peer-reviewed. Commentaries can be broad ranging, describing the relevance of the SDG to this field, or provide an overview of work with a specific intervention, country or population.
Expressions of interest are sought from authors across the world in a variety of disciplines. Commentaries are encouraged from people who live and work in Majority World countries (including low and middle-income countries and small island states) and people who have lived experience of communication and / or swallowing disability. The aim is to cover EVERY SDG – so be creative.
People who submit an expression of interest will hear the outcome by the end of January 2022. If accepted to write a full paper, the requirements are: 1. Commentary papers should be 2,500-3,000 words. Word lengths include the title, abstract, references, tables, figures, appendices and references. 2. The manuscript should use IJSLP formatting and American Psychological Association referencing (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/healthcare/iasl.pdf) 3. The manuscript should be submitted to https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tasl
