Leadership and retention in early childhood education

The following article has been accepted for publication from Belinda's PhD. Congratulations Belinda. Downey, B., Letts, W., McLeod, S. & Gibbs, L. (2024). Leadership and retention in early childhood education. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood. https://doi.org/10.1177/18369391241286935

Exploring Sao Paulo with Prof Yvonne Wren

Prof Yvonne Wren and I have enjoyed exploring São Paulo - a city of 12 million people. We have also enjoyed the opportunity of  working together on our keynote presentations and other work to support children with speech sound disorders around the world.

Sharynne and Yvonne finalising our keynote presentations

Sharynne and Yvonne with St Paul outside the
Catedral Metropolitana de São Paulo

Artwork by Beatriz Milhazes in the Picture Gallery in Transformation exhibition

Artwork at the Museu de arte de São Paulo (MASP) are displayed on crystal plinths
- so that comparisons can be made between the art

Rio de Janeiro - A colourful and friendly city

This is my first trip to South America. I have loved visiting Rio de Janeiro while get over jetlag. It is such a colourful and friendly city celebrating people of all ages and cultures. 

Barbie Marathon on Copacabana Beach

Walking along Ipanema with Tom Jobim composer of "The Girl from Ipanema" :)

Multilingual Brazil - Portuguese, Spanish, English

An Australian Aboriginal churinga in the Museum of Tomorrow - "to be a bridge between what came before and what is yet to come. A concrete link between our visitors and our ethical pillars of Sustainability and Conviviality. It represents the dream of shared by all of us to build the tomorrows that we desire together"

I now travel to Sao Paulo for the FORL conference (https://www.congressoforl.org/) where I am a keynote speaker. I was invited to visit Brazil as a keynote speaker in 2011, 2020, and 2022, but each time health and family issues have prevented me visiting. Finally, I have made it. I am so pleased to be here.

Health Research Roundtable

I attended day 1 of the CSU Health Research Roundtable in Orange yesterday led by Prof Julian Grant. 

Prof Sharynne McLeod with Prof Julian Grant (Associate Dean Research, Faculty of Science and Health)

Aim

To bring together health research leaders from across the university to clarify our collective health research strengths and opportunities for growth.

1.    Identify contexts for enabling the growth of health research at Charles Sturt
2.    Identify key areas of research strength and areas for growth
3.    Identify key internal and external stakeholders and power-interests

Writing Children's Speech (2nd edition)

Elise Baker and I are working on the second edition of Children's Speech. A lot has happened in this field since it was published in 2017. Our second edition will be published by Oxford University Press.

Elise and Sharynne

Bathurst Campus Master Plan – Working Group

I have been invited to be a member of the Charles Sturt University Bathurst Campus Master Plan – Working Group

"Comprised of a range of stakeholders representing a wide array of divisions, faculties and institutes based in Bathurst which can speak to the strategic needs and directions of their unit. The purpose of meeting with this group will be to gather stakeholder input on the campus and developing master plan. It is proposed to meet at several touchpoints throughout the project in workshop-style sessions."

We met today for the first time and discussed the campus as a place for research, education, community, and culture.

Reconnecting with Lynelle

Today I had the opportunity to reconnect with Lynelle Wyllie-Smith who was my honours student a number of years ago. She now is a speech pathologist in Tasmania - and I really enjoyed reconnecting with her. Here is her publication from her honours research.

Wyllie-Smith, L., McLeod, S., & Ball, M. J. (2006). Typically developing and speech-impaired children's adherence to the sonority hypothesis. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 20(4), 271–291. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699200400016497

Moving Beyond Monolingual Practices with Multilingual Children: Learning from Vietnamese-English–Speaking Children, Families, and Professionals

Congratulations to Dr Kate Margetson for passing your PhD with no changes required! This is an important contribution to the world's knowledge to support multilingual children to realize their communication rights.

Title: Moving Beyond Monolingual Practices with Multilingual Children: Learning from Vietnamese-English–Speaking Children, Families, and Professionals

Abstract: Multilingual children’s speech assessment and differential diagnosis of speech sound disorders can be challenging for speech-language pathologists (SLPs), especially if they do not speak the same language as the children they are working with. While best practice recommendations include assessing children in all the languages that they speak, in many English-dominant contexts SLPs often rely on English assessments for diagnostic decision-making. There are few guidelines for how SLPs can assess, transcribe, and analyse speech in children’s home languages. This doctoral research aimed to explore assessment, transcription, speech analysis, and diagnosis of speech sound disorders in multilingual children involving direct speech assessment of children’s home languages. Vietnamese-English–speaking children and their families were the focus of this research. The thesis contained four parts, which included five publications.
Part One, Monolingual Speech-Language Pathologists in Multilingual Contexts (Chapter 1), included an orientation to the thesis, situated the researcher, presented a literature review, and outlined methodology. Linguistic multicompetence (Cook, 2016) and the emergence approach (Davis & Bedore, 2013) were presented as the theoretical frameworks underpinning the research.
Part Two, Vietnamese-English–speaking Children’s Speech described similarities and differences between Vietnamese and English phonology, Vietnamese-English–speaking children’s speech acquisition, and current resources available to SLPs for assessment and intervention with Vietnamese-English–speaking children (Chapter 2). The interaction between Vietnamese and English phonology was explored in a cross-sectional study (n = 149) of Vietnamese-English–speaking children’s and adult family members’ speech in Vietnamese and English (Chapter 3) and found that direction of cross-linguistic transfer in children’s speech was significantly associated with children’s age and language proficiency.
Part Three, Diagnosis of Speech Sound Disorders in Vietnamese-English–speaking Children presented in-depth case studies of Vietnamese-English–speaking children’s speech. Case studies of four children considered the impact of assessing both languages on differential diagnosis (Chapter 4). All four children appeared to have speech sound disorder based on English assessment only, but analysis of children’s speech in both languages revealed that only two children had a speech sound disorder. A longitudinal case study explored four influences on a Vietnamese-English–speaking child’s speech over time (Chapter 5) and found that most speech mismatches could be explained by development, dialect, cross-linguistic transfer, and ambient phonology, and that cross-linguistic transfer reduced over time.
Part Four, Moving Beyond Monolingual Speech-Language Pathology Practices with Multilingual Children presented an evidence-based research protocol, the VietSpeech Multilingual Transcription Protocol, for assessing and transcribing multilingual children’s and adults’ speech, that ensured consistent and reliable transcription (Chapter 6). A clinical protocol, the Speech Assessment of Children’s Home Languages, was proposed, for SLPs to assess, transcribe, and analyse multilingual children’s speech, to account for the idiolects of children, their families, and their SLPs (Chapter 7). The Speech Assessment of Children’s Home Languages will enable SLPs to collaborate with family members and interpreters to assess speech in children’s home languages, providing opportunities to consider children’s entire phonological repertoires during diagnostic decision-making. Finally, conclusions, contributions of the doctoral research, limitations, and future directions were presented (Chapter 8).
This doctoral research sought to bridge a gap between research and practice in multilingual children’s speech assessment by demonstrating the importance of speech assessment of home languages, describing ways of analysing multilingual children’s speech to identify four potential mismatches (development, dialect, cross-linguistic transfer, ambient phonology), and outlining how SLPs move beyond monolingual practices in the way they assess, transcribe, and analyse multilingual children’s speech using the VietSpeech Multilingual Transcription Protocol and the Speech Assessment of Children’s Home Languages.

PAPER 1 (Chapter 2)

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

PAPER 2 (Chapter 3)

Margetson, K., McLeod, S., Verdon, S. (2024). Cross-linguistic transfer in Vietnamese-English–speaking children’s and adults’ speech [Manuscript in preparation]. School of Education, Charles Sturt University.

PAPER 3 (Chapter 4)

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: An ecosystemic view to diversity (pp. 217-245). John Benjamins Publishing Company.

PAPER 4 (Chapter 5)

Margetson, K., McLeod, S., & Verdon, S. (2023). Cross-linguistic transfer and ambient phonology: Impact on diagnosis of speech sound disorders in a longitudinal bilingual case study. Journal of Monolingual and Bilingual Speech, 4(3), 311-339. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmbs.23672

PAPER 5 (Chapter 6)

Margetson, K., McLeod, S., Verdon, S. & Tran, V. H. (2023). Transcribing multilingual children’s and adults’ speech. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 37 (4-6), 415-435. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699206.2022.2051073

Congratulations Dr Margetson

Just before our postdoc meeting today, Kate Margetson received an official parcel that she had to sign for - it was her testamur - so now she is officially Dr Kate Margetson. CONGRATULATIONS KATE!

Buildling a culture of philanthropy

 I have been invited as one of six people from across CSU to participate in a mentoring program titled "Building a culture of philanthropy." The initiative is from Sarah Ansell, Justin Williams and the CSU Advancement Office (https://www.csu.edu.au/office/advancement/home) who has invited David Pettigrew from Nourish nfp to provide the program (https://nourishnfp.com/). I am excited to learn.

Wiradjuri children's books and Indigenous resources

Today at the Dhuluny Aboriginal Art Market I met two Wiradjuri children's book authors: Larry Brandy and Jessica Leffley. We are purchasing Indigenous resources as part of our current RHRI grant to support rural children's communication.

Jessica Leffley

Resources purchased from Reilly Callie

Planning the Children's Voices Centre and The Treehouse

At the moment, so much of my time is spent on the exciting task of planning the Children's Voices Centre and The Treehouse. I am close to finalising the business plan, I've been working with CSU Brand, the webteam, and getting advice from colleagues and friends.

Bathurst speech pathologists visiting CSU with Prof Kirrie Ballard

Bathurst speech pathologists visiting The Treehouse

Tackling the High-Intensity-Practice Challenge in SSD - Guest lecture from Prof Kirrie Ballard

Today we were very honoured to host Prof Kirrie Ballard at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst. She presented a hybrid workshop titled "Tackling the High-Intensity-Practice Challenge in SSD".

Overview of the session • Your client with SSD is now stimulable for their target sound/s • Now, research says they need high intensity practice 3 or more times a week to master this • You can't see clients that often • You give them homework but have no idea how much gets done • Could your clients be improving faster? • In this session we'll discuss your biggest challenges to implementing evidence-based practice and brainstorm ideas you can take back to your clinics and try. We'll get hands-on experience with the one tool, the Say Bananas app, that we designed specifically for this problem. • BYO tablet (iPAD or Android). We will have some extras for those who don't bring one. Note that the Say Bananas app is not available for phones/laptops.

Say Bananas YouTube video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYvRJzDCmQM

Guest Lecture - Interagency Speech Pathology Community of Practice

I was honoured to be invited to present a lecture to the Interagency Speech Pathology Community of Practice across NSW focussed on listening to children. These speech pathologists work in the Department of Communities and Justice. What an inspiring group.

Taking time to understand the true history of our country

Today was the 200th anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law in Bathurst. A sad day in the history of our nation. To mark this occasion, "Dhuluny: The war that never ended", a  thought-provoking exhibition, is at the Bathurst Art Gallery https://bathurstart.com.au/exhibitions-events/dhuluny-the-war-that-never-ended/

"Dhuluny means the direct or gospel truth, and the commemoration offers visitors the opportunity to share and understand the true history of our country and celebrate the resilience of the Wiradyuri Nation."

The Wiradyuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation are hosting a series of events this week. I decided it was very important attend one of these events today. This afternoon I attended Dhuluny and sat with Wiradjuri woman Jessika Spencer (Ngurru: First Nationss Weaving) and learned how to weave as her grandmother had taught her.

My weaving

Wiradjuri weaving

Wiradjuri weaving

Possum skin arm bands

Ready for this afternoon's corroboree

 

 

Meeting with Audrey re Once Upon A Time research grant

 Today Dr Audrey Wang and I met to discuss the data from our Once Upon A Time research grant considering the experiences of children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) undertaking intensive intervention using an approach called Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing (DTTC). As a psychologist, Audrey has knowledge about children's subjective, psychological and emotional experiences, cognitive and emotional development, and children’s ability to reflect on internal experiences.

Research planning with Catholic Education Tasmania

We are getting closer to finalising our research plans to support Catholic Education Tasmania (CET) and their screening of children's speech. This is an extremely important project and we look forward to the next steps.

Colleagues from CET, Sharynne, Nicola, Sarah V

Translating and sharing research - videos and posters

Today I met with A/Prof Belinda Cash for our monthly mentoring meeting. One of the topics we discussed was how important it is to translate our Q1 journal articles to user-friendly formats (videos, posters, resources etc.).

Here are some examples of ways that we have translated our research into user-friendly formats

1. VIDEO "The Lifelong Effects Of Speaking Multiple Languages" Multilingualism is a superpower! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBrXmRW7lwg

Based on:

Blake, H. L., McLeod, S., Verdon, S., & Fuller, G. (2018). The relationship between spoken English proficiency and participation in higher education, employment and income from two Australian censuses. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 20(2), 202–215. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2016.1229031 

McLeod, S., & Crowe, K. (2018). Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 27(4), 1546–1571. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100

2.  RESOURCES "VietSpeech SuperSpeech - Maintaining home languages" https://www.csu.edu.au/research/vietspeech/info

Based on: 

McLeod, S., Verdon, S., Tran, V. H., Margetson, K., & Wang, C. (2022). SuperSpeech: Multilingual speech and language maintenance intervention for Vietnamese-Australian children and families via telepractice. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 53(3), 675-697. https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_LSHSS-21-00146

3.  POSTERS "Learning English consonants"https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-acquisition

Based on:

McLeod, S., & Crowe, K. (2018). Children’s consonant acquisition in 27 languages: A cross-linguistic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 27(4), 1546–1571. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0100

Crowe, K., & McLeod, S. (2020). Children's English consonant acquisition in the United States: A review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 29(4), 2155–2169. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_AJSLP-19-00168

4. VIDEO "ON-TRAC - transitioning to residential aged care" https://youtu.be/DKPSTt4ihyk

Based on: 

Fealy, S., McLaren, S., Nott, M., Seaman, C.E., Cash, B., & Rose, L. (2024). Psychological interventions designed to reduce relocation stress for older people transitioning into permanent residential aged care: A systematic scoping review. Aging and Mental Health. https://doi.org/10.1080/13607863.2024.2340731

(Created by Gareth Smart - CSU digital media technologist - DLT)

Lecture to fourth year Bachelor of Dental Science (BDSc) students

Tonight it was my pleasure to give a lecture to the fourth year Bachelor of Dental Science (BDSc) students. Dr Winey Wan invited me - and is an enthusiastic supporter of her students learning about speech, language and communication.

Impact of our research with siblings

Some time ago we undertook research with siblings of children with disabilities, including communication disabilities:

Barr, J., & McLeod, S. (2010). They never see how hard it is to be me: Siblings' observations of strangers, peers and family. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 12(2), 162–171. https://doi.org/10.3109/17549500903434133

Our paper has just been cited here:

Strohm, K. (2024). Recommendations of the Disability Royal Commission fail to recognise families, siblings in particular, as natural lifelong supports for people with intellectual disabilities. Research and Practice in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/23297018.2024.2364340