October 15, 2012

August - September 2012 Summary

AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH COUNCIL FUTURE FELLOWSHIP UPDATE
‘Speaking my language: International speech acquisition in Australia’
Written by Kim Woodland, Research Institute for Professional Practice, Learning and Education for the October 2012 RIPPLE Update

In early August, Sharynne, along with CRN colleagues and members of the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FAHCSIA), got together to learn more about the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC). LSIC parallels the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), both Australian Government initiatives and rich sources of data.
Sharynne also spent more time hosting international visitors over the last couple of months than travelling herself; however, she was still kept busy with long-distance Skype and conference calls. During August she hosted a visit from two former students—Lê Thi Thanh Xuân (Xuân) and Lê Khánh Điền (Điền)—from Pham Ngoc Thach University, Hồ Chí Minh City, Việt Nam. The trio met to work on a phonological analysis of Vietnamese children’s speech and to play in some snow that had fallen in the Central Tablelands of NSW (the first time the two students had ever seen snow).
In late August she hosted Dr Elise Baker from the University of Sydney. Sharynne and Elise have been writing chapters for their new book, Children’s speech: An evidence-based approach to assessment and intervention. During the visit, they took photos of mouths at the CSU Dental and Oral Health Clinic, which will be used to demonstrate how speech is produced.
Sharynne has also continued her work with the International Expert Panel on Multilingual Children’s Speech on developing a position paper on multilingual children with speech sound disorders, which has involved extensive international collaboration. Dr Caroline Bowen visited Bathurst in September, and worked with Sharynne and Sarah Verdon to moderate comments on the penultimate version of the draft. The final paper should be ready within a few months and will be made available to children, families, speech-language pathologists and other professionals.
For more information, please visit Sharynne’s blog: Speaking my languages.
Lê Thi Thanh Xuân and Lê Khánh Điền visiting CSU