Publication in BMJ

Our article has just been published in BMJ: 

Marshall, J., Wylie, K., McLeod, S., McAllister, L., Barrett, H., Owusu, N. A., Hettiarachchi, S., & Atherton, M. (2024). Communication disability in low and middle-income countries: A call to action. BMJ Global Health, 9(7), e015289. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2024-015289 I worked on this during my visit to Manchester Metropolitan University with Prof Julie Marshall (and other times). It is wonderful to see this work published. 

ICPLA 2025 website

I am the ICPLA President, and am excited that the ICPLA 2025 conference plans are underway. The ICPLA 2025 website is available: https://logoth.upatras.gr/en/icpla2025/ The conference email address is: icpla2025@upatras.gr The conference chair is: Dr Eleftheria Geronikou, Department of Speech and Language Therapy, University of Patras

Establishing the Children's Voices Centre @ The Treehouse

Recently I have had so many excellent meetings with colleagues across Charles Sturt University to prepare for the establishment of the Children's Voices Centre @ The Treehouse including:

• Business plan - Pat McKenna
• Staffing - Holly Weal
• Building design - Matt Newton, Sean Sun
• Audio visual requirements - Sean Sun and David Stormer
• Website development - Paula Woodhouse, Nilima Mathai, Boram Kwon, Lindsey Ting, and Ann Emms
• Website user experience - Boram Kwon, Lindsey Ting, and Ann Emms
  
• Brand/logo - Amy Felke, Brodie Miller, Nilima Mathai
  
• Grants - Justin Williams - CSU Advancement

ECV2024: This week's registrations and update

Here are the latest statistics

•  237 registrations from 30+ countries: Australia, Bangladesh, Benin, Brazil, Burundi, Canada, Fiji, France, Germany, Hong Kong (SAR China), Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Kuwait, Malta, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, 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

• 6 abstracts (due 29 July)
  
• 3 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)

ECV2024 conference team meeting - 2 July 2024

Dr Belinda Downey presented information about ECV2024
at the Faculty of Arts and Education (FOAE) Forum on 3 July 2024

Assessing Multilingual Children's Speech in their Home Languages - Professional Development Events online at CSU

This week Kate Margetson is running three free professional development events titled "Assessing Multilingual Children's Speech in their Home Languages" as part of our Rural Health Research Institute Grant. We have asked participants to complete a 10 minute questionnaire as part of the free event to provide us with information about current work with multilingual children and to give us feedback on the clinical feasibility and applicability of our new evidence-based approach to support multilingual children's speech titled Speech Assessment in Children's Home Languages (SACHL). 502 people registered - and 348 enthusiastic people attended the sessions. 

• Monday 1st July at 8am Sydney timezone - 90 attendees 
• Tuesday 2nd July at 12pm Sydney timezone - 137 attendees
  
• Friday 5th July at 12pm Sydney timezone - 121 attendees
  

Kate Margetson presenting online - introducing the SACHL

The presentation included lots of published evidence from the VietSpeech Study

Congratulations Kate Margetson on your PhD results

Congratulations to Kate Margetson who learned of her outstanding PhD results this afternoon. The international examiners were extremely positive in their examination. Congratulations!

Kate Margetson learning the exciting news from her proud supervisors
A/Prof Sarah Verdon and Prof Sharynne McLeod

Children’s communication and the developing mind: A challenge for Australia

The following paper has just been published. It is an invited journal article based on the lecture I gave for the Royal Society of New South Wales last year that was part of the 2023 Royal Society of New South Wales and Learned Academies Forum: “Our 21st Century Brain” https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2023/11/invited-presentation-our-21st-century.html

McLeod, S. (2024). Children’s communication and the developing mind: A challenge for Australia. Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 157, 43–48. https://royalsoc.org.au/images/pdf/journal/157-1-11McLeod.pdf

There are many excellent papers in the special issue:

https://royalsoc.org.au/images/pdf/journal/157-1-web-complete.pdf

THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF N.S.W. AND FIVE ACADEMIES FORUM: OUR 21st CENTURY BRAIN 

• Opening Address - The Governor,Margaret Beazley
• Welcome and Acknowledgements- Susan Pond
• Keynote Presentations - George Paxinos, Lucy Palmer, Joshua Gordon
• I−The Developing Mind - Penny van Bergen, Adam Guastella, Sharynne McLeod, Anne Castles, Kate Highfield
• II−The Brain: Social, Cultural and Philosophical Perspectives- Pip Pattison, Andrew Chanen, Andrew Leigh, Jennifer Kent, Jakelin Troy, David Bradden Mitchell
• III − The Brain Disease Burden in Adults- Anthony Cunningham, Glenda Halliday, Sharon Naismith, Lucette Cysique & Andrew Lloyd
• IV− Turbocharging Human Intelligence with Artificial Intelligence- Ian Oppermann, Sally Cripps, Stela Solar, Lyria Bennett Moses:
• V−Implications for the Future- Ian Hickie, Pip Pattison, Helen Christensen, Peter Baume, Jaky Troy

Multilingual Children's Speech website

Our research websites are very popular across the whole world. Today we began working with the Charles Sturt University webteam to make them even more user friendly and up to date.

Multilingual Children's Speech  https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/

• 2023 - 104,606 views
• 2024 (6 months) - 55,579 views

VietSpeech https://www.csu.edu.au/research/vietspeech/

• 2023 - 2,083 views
• 2024 (6 months) - 1,245 views

 

IALP centenary celebrations in Vienna

We were very honoured to have been invited to present a paper at the centenary celebrations of the International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders (IALP) in Vienna https://ialp-org.com/event/9853/.

"President Dr. Brian Shulman, Past President Prof. Pamela Enderby, Vice-President Prof. Scharff Rethfeldt and CEO Vanessa Ebejer are inviting you to a special event between 27 and 29 June, 2024. IALP will host a Centennial Composium in Vienna, Austria, which is the cradle of logopedics and phoniatrics and the venue where IALP was founded. To celebrate its 100th Anniversary (1924-2024), the International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders (IALP) is delighted to announce its forthcoming Composium entitled Contemporary Perspectives in Communication Sciences and Disorders... We look forward to celebrating this special anniversary with you!" https://ialp-org.com/event/9853

• Our session is titled: Multilingual Speech Development and Disorders - Helen Grech, Sharynne McLeod, Helen L. Blake, and Kate Margetson.
• Our presentation is titled "A contemporary perspective of children's speech development in languages of the world" - Sharynne McLeod, Helen L. Blake, and Kate Margetson. We are unable to attend - so have submitted a recording.
  

Tweets from IALP during our presentation

My colleague Prof Lindy McAllister sent this photograph from the event in Vienna.

Here is the full program

Australian Research Council LIEF assessors' reports

Today we received very encouraging assessors' reports for our Australian Research Council Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) grant submission. We hope this translates to a positive outcome in a few months' time. 

https://www.arc.gov.au/funding-research/funding-schemes/linkage-program/linkage-infrastructure-equipment-and-facilities

Child Language Teaching and Therapy Annual Summer Lecture 2024

The Journal of Child Language Teaching and Therapy invited me to present their 2024 Summer Lecture. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/child-language-teaching-and-therapy-annual-summer-lecture-2024-tickets-882052130667  

CLTT's YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-U45Q5Ee-6NXWrklIfxI2Q

Do we really listen to children? 

Distinguished Professor Sharynne McLeod, Charles Sturt University, Australia 

• Wednesday, 26 June Child Language Teaching and Therapy Annual Summer Lecture 2024 
• Date and time: Wed, 26 Jun 2024 19:00 - 20:30 AEST 
• Location: Online 
• About this event: 1 hour 30 minutes

I was delighted to see it was sold out - with 250 free tickets registered from people in United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Ireland, Ghana, United States, New Zealand, Philippines, Isle of Man, Fiji, Sweden, Greece, Canada, Switzerland, South Africa, Portugal, Morocco, Kenya, Japan, Indonesia, India, Egypt, Dominica, Czech Republic, Brazil, Bangladesh, Algeria.

Do we really listen to children? Abstract. Communication is a human right for all; and ALL includes children with speech, language, and communication needs, including those who speak/sign non-dominant languages (McLeod, 2018). Aligning with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations, 1989) we have given attention to the “voice” of children. For example, we have creatively engaged in child-friendly arts-based methods to provide children with the “right to freedom of expression… regardless of frontiers” as outlined in Article 13. However, do we REALLY listen to children? As we become more accustomed to including children’s perspectives in our professional practices, it is time to reflect on whether some of our inclusion of children’s voices could be perceived as “tokenistic” (Hart, 1992). As communication specialists, we have the power to support children’s voice and to assist others to listen. How can we mature in our practices to enhance children’s participation within democratic processes in their families, schools, communities, and society? 

Biography. Sharynne McLeod, PhD is a Distinguished Professor at Charles Sturt University, Australia specialising in speech and language acquisition. Her transformative research has reframed the profession by foregrounding communication rights and social justice, and by enhancing equitable participation for multilingual children with speech, language and communication needs. She has advocated for communication rights at the United Nations and the World Health Organization. She is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales. She has been an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Bristol, and Visiting Professor at Manchester Metropolitan University. She served as editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, and has received Honors of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and Life Membership of Speech Pathology Australia. The Australian Newspaper named her Australia’s Research Field Leader and Best in the World in Audiology, Speech and Language Pathology based on the “quality, volume and impact” of her research. 

https://www.journals.sagepub.com/home/clt 

More information A recording will be made available after the lecture. The lecture will be held online via zoom and details will be shared with participants. 

Follow us on X: @SharynneMcLeod @CLTTJournal Connect with us on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/child-language-teaching-and-therapy https://www.journals.sagepub.com/home/clt https://www.eventbrite.com/e/child-language-teaching-and-therapy-annual-summer-lecture-2024-tickets-882052130667

Congratulations Dr. Karla Washington - Canada Research Chair

Congratulations to my colleague Dr. Karla Washington at the Universitiy of Toronto who has been named as a Canada Research Chair in Monolingual and Multilingual Paediatric Speech-Language Pathology (Tier 2). Here is a description about her work and appointment:

Speech sound disorder (SSD) and developmental language disorder (DLD) present significant barriers to academic and social participation, with the potential to negatively impact the speech and language development of children globally. Dr. Washington’s overarching research goal is to support children’s human right to effective communication by improving diagnosis and treatment of these disorders. Her research addresses misdiagnosis of SSD and DLD in multilingual preschoolers in an understudied context (Jamaican Creole-English) through diversification of theoretical and empirical approaches. She also aims to characterize the neural basis of DLD, with the goal of better understanding memory-language mechanisms underlying grammar learning and impairment.

Author meetings for The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World

This week I have held two meetings (to accommodate the world's timezones) for the chapter authors of the The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World. It has been wonderful to see everyone together on the screen and to celebrate that the book will be submitted soon and published in 2025.

Chapter authors attending meeting 1 - Wednesday at 8am Sydney time

 

Chapter authors attending meeting 2 - Thursday at 7pm Sydney time

Here is the final table of contents:

The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World
Editor: Sharynne McLeod
1.    Children’s speech development around the world: An introduction
2.    Cultural considerations regarding children’s speech development
3.    Researching children’s speech development
4.    Articulatory and phonological foundations of children’s speech development
5.    Speech assessment of children’s home languages (SACHL): A clinical protocol
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

University of Alberta PhD Candidacy Exam

This morning I was an external examiner for a University of Alberta PhD Candidacy Exam (online). It was a privilege to be involved in the examination process with colleagues from across Canada. Congratulations to the candidate and her supervisory team, chaired by Prof Karen Pollock.

Prof Karen Pollock and Prof Sharynne McLeod

RHRI Grant team meeting

This morning our RHRI team met to inform one another of the progress we are making in our research. It was a very positive meeting with achievements across six of the seven phases of the project (the seventh is the summary phase).

Emily-Jane Woodhead, Sharynne, Carolyn Gregoric, Sarah Bartlett

Here are some journal articles about selecting children's books that may inform some of our conversations:

• Hill, S., Glover, A., & Colbung, M. (2011). My favourite book! Young Aboriginal children’s book choices. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 36(1), 77-84. https://doi.org/10.1177/183693911103600113 
• Foster, A. M., & Hayes, C. (2023). Dreamcatchers, water protectors, and the question of authenticity: Supporting teachers in choosing and using indigenous children's literature. Early Childhood Education Journal. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-023-01509-4 
• Guiberson, M., & Vining, C. B. (2023). Culturally responsive and indigenous language strategies: Findings from a scoping review. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 45(1), 3-19. https://doi.org/10.1177/15257401231155812
  

The Treehouse - Daily users' meeting

Today Sean Sun (CSU) met with Dr Belinda Downey, Dr Kelly Tribolet and myself for the first time as "daily users" to discuss his plans to make The Treehouse compliant to the current disability building codes. Our conversations also enable us to dream about the future use of the building.

Sean, Belinda, Kelly and Sharynne consider public access to different areas

Queensland Department of Education videos on cultural safety and maintaining home language

The Queensland Department of Education has just launched two excellent videos:

• Cultural safety with Professor Tony Dreise - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYL__hyro7A

"The first Kindy uplift priority, ‘Creating culturally safe, inclusive and responsive Kindergarten Programs’ emphasises the importance of including all First Nations children and enhancing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives within Kindergarten Programs. In this video we hear from Professor Tony Dreise about the importance of cultural safety. Explore further at https://earlychildhood.qld.gov.au/grants-and-funding/kindy-uplift-program"

• Maintaining home language - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XneIolMk42s

"Multilingualism is a strength. More than one in four Australian children speak a language other than English at the age of starting school. Being multilingual has many advantages, including improved learning at school, social skills, self-confidence, and cognitive development. The two animated videos aim to empower families to maintain home language. The Language and Literacy team provides a range of resources encompassing evidence-based research, to enable educators, families and home tutors to support children’s development of language, reading and writing. Visit https://readingwritingcentre.education.qld.gov.au/ for more information."

Charles Sturt continues to be a global leader in sustainability

CSU News has just announced that "Charles Sturt University holds its status as a global leader in gender equality, climate action and other sustainable practices as recognised within the 2024 Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings." https://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/charles-sturt-continues-to-be-a-global-leader-in-climate-action,-gender-equality-and-sustainability

• SDG5 - Gender equality - 33rd in the world (top 2%)
  
• SDG13 - Climate action - 48th in the world (top 5%)
• SDG15 - Life on land - 72nd in the world (top 10%)
• SDG17- Partnership for the goals - 99th in the world (top 5%)

"THE’s Impact rankings are the only global University rankings that measure progress towards the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. They evaluate our university programs and initiatives including research, teaching and learning, partnerships and engagement, and facilities and operations." DVC-R Mark Evans

ECV2024: This week's registrations and update

• 140 registrations from 20 countries: Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Fiji, Hong Kong (SAR China), Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Qatar, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, USA 

Two 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.
  
  
  
  

  

  ECV2024 Leadership team - Carolyn Gregoric, Sharynne McLeod, Belinda Downey
  

  
  

The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World - retreat and meeting with OUP

Over the past two days Helen Blake and I have had a book retreat to get The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World closer to submission. This is the first time I have printed the book - and it is quite an impressive thickness (double sided). We have had a lot of fun finalizing this amazing book.

Tonight (Friday) we met online with Vicki Sunter, linguistics production editor with Oxford University Press to plan for submission - production - and publication. What an exciting conversation working through the next steps. We are very pleased that the book is in good shape and close to submission.

Helen Blake, Vicki Sunter (OUP) and Sharynne

Helen and Sharynne working hard