Today we met to discuss the scoping review we are undertaking to consider the perspectives of children with disabilities about healthcare
Lots of people like to pop in and visit The Treehouse. Today I hosted two visitors who used to work at the CSU Library. They were visiting Pulse, the CSU shop - and we got chatting about the synergies between their interests and ours. They may become Friends of CVC.
Today A/Prof Tamara Cumming, Dr Carolyn Gregoric and I met with Lilium Burrow and team from the Bathurst Regional Art Gallery
Here are the plans so far:
BRAG Forecourt Summer Exhibition - Presentation of the Children Draw Health Global Online Galleries.
The ABC has selected the work of A/Prof Kathy Cologon to profile for National Children’s Week (18-26 October). Congratulations Kathy!
National Children’s Week celebrates the rights, voices, and contributions of children. It’s a reminder to pause and truly listen to what children are telling us – about inclusion, belonging, and what it means to be seen and valued. In this powerful reflection, contributing author, Associate Professor Kathy Cologon, shares insights from research that centres children’s voices and experiences. Through art and conversation, children speak to the importance of being included, the strength of diversity, and the simple but profound truth that difference is not a deficit.
What an amazing team we have at CVC. Each Tuesday team meeting is a celebration of achievements, joint planning and problem solving, and supportive teamwork. Thanks team!
Dr Carolyn Gregoric, Dr Belinda Downey and I have been doing a lot of work to prepare for presenting the Children Draw Health research at the World Health Organization meeting next week. Here are the finalised pull-up banners:
This morning Dr Kate Margetson, Dr Helen L. Blake and I were invited to present a 3-hour live session to the Canadian Speech and Stuttering Institute (SSI) (https://ssitraininghub.ca/) and speech-language pathologists across Canada and the USA (n = 25). Our presentation was titled "Multilingual Children's Speech Acquisition and Therapy".
Children learn to communicate in one or more of the world’s 7000 languages. Assessment and intervention for multilingual children’s speech can be challenging, especially if children do not speak languages that are familiar to speech-language pathologists (S-LPs). This workshop will provide a cross-linguistic account of monolingual and multilingual and children’s speech development.
Part 1 of the workshop, will begin with an overview of (mostly free) resources that are available to support children’s speech acquisition, assessment, and intervention in over 130 of the world’s languages and dialects on the Multilingual Children’s Speech website https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/home
Part 2 of the workshop will present the Speech Assessment of Children’s Home Language(s) (SACHL), a practical evidence-based protocol for assessing children’s speech in unfamiliar languages. The step-by-step protocol includes: comparing languages with English; identifying and using SLPs’ existing skills; identifying areas requiring support from families/interpreters; locating and using assessments in a range of languages; taking a collaborative approach to transcribing and analyzing multilingual speech; considering reasons children’s speech may not match standard targets; and implications for diagnosis of speech sound disorder.
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| SSI organisers and presenters |
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| Kate presenting part 2 |
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| One attendee sharing her "favourite book" |
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| We reported on the VietSpeech research in part 2 |
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| Padlet answers |
We had another wonderful meeting with Dr Mélanie Gréaux from the World Health Organization to update everyone on the huge amount of work that we have done over the past month.
This has included being certified as a Member of the WHO Disability Health Equity Network. We learned that to date, 1088 expressions of interest were received, 261 were full applications and 141 have been approved. The deadline has been extended for Member States. The launch will be held from 12-13 November in Geneva.
We also have finished our Children's Voices Centre Children's Advisory Group analysis of 126 drawings from 18 countries to provide an overview of children's recommendations about health and access to healthcare. Our recommendations are ready to present in Fiji in a few weeks' time.
Our scoping review is in full swing with full text data extraction continuing being led by Dr Kate Freire.
Thanks team!
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| Sharynne, Mel, Helen, Belinda, Carolyn |
Thank you to Abbey from the CSU Brand team who has been working with Carolyn Gregoric and Belinda Downey to create the booklet we will present to the World Health Organization later this month. It is looking great!
We were invited to present a Speech Sound Disorders Series for Bright Ideas Media in the US.
This morning Dr. Kelly Farquharson and I presented a live 90 minute session to over 100 speech-language pathologists across the United States. Our presentation was titled: "Clinical Use of Speech Sound Acquisition Data"
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| "Don't ask when should a child say /s/ - instead ask what sound is the child making instead of /s/" |
Dr Helen L. Blake and Dr Kate Margetson and I were invited to present a 2-hour online session titled "Multilingual Children’s Speech Assessment: A Contemporary Global Update"
Welcome to the Speech Sound Disorders Series for 2025—a fresh look at how we treat speech sound disorders, grounded in what we know now. This year, we’re placing a strong focus on updated, evidence-based practices that reflect the evolving landscape of our field.
Joining the series are international experts Drs. Kelly Farquharson and Sharynne McLeod, bringing global insights and current research to deepen our understanding. From the nuances of treating R to conducting effective multilingual assessments, they’ll guide us through practical strategies that are informed, inclusive, and responsive to today’s clinical challenges.
The series includes:
* The 90-min live session, and the replay, co-presented by Drs. Sharynne McLeod and Kelly Farquharson: "Clinical Use of Speech Sound Acquisition Data"
* A 60-min on-demand course by Dr. Farquharson: "/ɹ/ you frustrated by working on /ɹ/? Try facilitative contexts!"
* An 120-min on-demand course by Drs. McLeod, Kate Margetson, and Helen Blake: "Multilingual Children’s Speech Assessment: A Contemporary Global Update"
This year's series is designed to challenge outdated assumptions and provide clear answers to common questions.
Our presenters are passionate about helping clinicians grow in confidence and competence. With their support—and expertise —you’ll walk away with sharper tools, broader perspective, and renewed clarity in how you treat speech sound disorders today.
Both on-demand courses will be available after the live event on Oct. 8 at 8:30 p.m. ET.
Lorraine Bennett and I appreciate advice from the CSU Finance team: Michael Woolnough and Gil Burmeister.
The news story was syndicated across the Australian Community Media network in the wider NSW Central West, including The Oberon Review: (Oberon), The Central Western Daily (Orange), The Lithgow Mercury (Lithgow), and The Daily Liberal (Dubbo). One interview, five newspaper stories!
From What's New and News today
Subject: Meet The New Cultural And Linguistic Diversity Champions And Be An Ally For Cultural Inclusion
Message:
The Cultural and Linguistic Diversity (CALD) Network has new Champions and a refreshed vision for inclusion and you are warmly invited to be part of it. Come along on Tuesday 21 October at 2pm and meet our new Champions Koshila Kumar, Jelena Bogdanovic and Salma Arabi and help build a vision for this important employee network.
In 2025:
- 13% of Charles Sturt staff speak a language other than English at home
- 10% of Charles Sturt staff come from an ethnic minority background
- More than 56 languages other than English are spoken at home by Charles Sturt staff
Networks aim to:
- unite people who share lived experience of inequity, and those who support them
- create a forum to raise issues of importance for gender equity
- allow members to draw on personal experience of gender inequity to provide feedback and guide decisions around University priorities and initiatives
- provide a safe place for employees to connect and create dialogue around diversity, workplace inclusion and belonging
Come along and share your experiences, show your allyship and help to create a truly inclusive culture in our workplace.
Find the calendar invitation here:https://www.csu.edu.au/division/people-culture/current-staff/respect-equity-and-diversity/diverse-faiths-cultures
For more information contact edi@csu.edu.au
We look forward to seeing you there.
Today Dr Carolyn Gregoric led a meeting with our CVC affiliates titled "Widening children's participation in research scoping review project". Claudio Dionigi provided advice on scoping reviews and Covidence.
How exciting - this paper has just been published.
McCormack, J., Cronin, A., McLeod, S., Ireland, M., Wang, C., & Tiong, C. (2025). Children’s drawings of intervention for childhood apraxia of speech: Place, people, activity, and emotion. Child Language Teaching and Therapy. https://doi.org/10.1177/02656590251375340
Exiting for two reasons - summarises our Once Upon a Time research grant + first paper to be accepted for our Child Language Teaching and Therapy special issue!
Here are the drawings that have been included as figures in our paper. These depict the participants' insights into undertaking DTTC intervention.
This morning I met with Marie Ireland and LaVae to discuss the data analysis for our nine tensions paper. 1011 responses submitted, 885 responses completed (and not duplicated) after data cleaning by Kate Crowe. Now the fun begins as we find out what they said. Marie has submitted an abstract for a conference in 2026 in Australia - hope it is accepted - so she can come and present this work.
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| Marie, Sharynne and LaVae |
All of the copyedited chapter files (80 chapters) and figure files arrived this week! There is a lot of work to be done to finalise these in the next two weeks. Thank you Helen Blake for your assistance - we make a great team!
I am mentoring Dr Ros Cox in the writing and publication of her book "Vaccination is under threat: Communication is the solution". She pitches the book with the publishers today. Best wishes Ros! Can't wait to work with you on this.
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