Today began my visit to the University of Bristol as the Bristol Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Visiting Professor (20 April - 26 May 2024). I am based in the Bristol Dental School with Professor Yvonne Wren:
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/international-research-development/visiting-researchers/visitors-for-202324/sharynne_mcleod/
Children born with cleft palate: Intelligibility and participation
Up to 1 million people in the UK have a communication disability which affects their ability to express themselves or to understand others. Our ability to communicate is impacted by our intelligibility and if we cannot make ourselves understood, then we will struggle to function in society. In particular, the impact on activities and participation, as defined by the World Health Organization can be significantly diminished, leading to social isolation and the potential for an impact on wellbeing and mental health, educational and occupational outcomes. Rarely will a clinician be aware of these difficulties as individuals can become quite adept at hiding their difficulties. Professor McLeod’s work has helped to draw attention to communication rights of all people with communication impairment and the difficulties that children with speech sound disorder in particular face in terms of everyday life as a child.
Children born with cleft palate are at particular risk of communication disability as a consequence of problems with intelligibility. Using data from The Cleft Collective, the large-scale national cohort study of over 10,000 participants led by Dr Yvonne Wren at Bristol Dental School, Professor McLeod and Dr Wren will explore intelligibility in affected children using the Intelligibility in Context Scale. The Scale was developed by Professor McLeod and has now been translated in over 60 languages and is used worldwide. The outputs will provide unique reference data for children born with cleft, taking into account additional factors such as cleft subtype and syndromic status. Further analysis will enable us to determine the impact that differences in intelligibility in this population has on children’s levels of activity and participation.
During her visit and through her planned talks, Prof McLeod will raise awareness of communication disability and highlight additional challenges and benefits when working with multilingual individuals.
Professor McLeod is hosted by Dr Yvonne Wren from the Bristol Dental School.
Lectures and seminars include:
- Open Lecture
"Communicating with Children and Families in a Multilingual World"
- Departmental seminar
"Speech, Language and Communication: An Overview for Dentists"
- Faculty of Health Sciences lecture: "Multilingual Children’s Speech"
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Prof Sharynne McLeod and Prof Yvonne Wren at Lido
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