Friday 28 July 2023

Congratulations Marie on your PhD submission

Congratulations to Marie Ireland who recently submitted her PhD from Iceland. She undertook her PhD by Prior Publication. Marie's thesis title was "Evaluation and Eligibility of Students with Communication Disorders in Public Schools in the United States" and consisted of 13 chapters (10 publications + 3 exegesis chapters). 

Here is the abstract: 

Communication is an essential human right that, beginning early in a child’s life, provides the foundation for interaction with others. Communication is the underpinning for success in school and untreated communication disorders may impact children’s futures. In the United States, students with disabilities in public schools receive free speech and language evaluations and, if needed, services from speech-language pathologists (SLPs). In U.S. public schools this process is regulated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and services are only available to students who meet specific eligibility criteria. An educational disability must result in an educational impact and is decided by a team that includes SLPs. Private speech-language pathology services are also available using a fee for service model decided by individual service providers. As parents and some educators may desire free services for students under IDEA, there is pressure to identify students as disabled who do not meet eligibility criteria. Misidentification due to cultural or linguistic differences also occurs. There are potential negative consequences to inappropriate disability identification such as: segregation from typically developing peers, violating the child’s rights with decreased expectations or limited educational opportunities, increased caseloads for SLPs resulting in recruitment and retention issues, and violation of state and federal regulations. While service options exist outside of IDEA, inconsistency in evaluation practices and eligibility decision-making has been documented and creates tensions for families, educators, and SLPs.

This thesis presents work for a PhD by Prior Publication to explore and describe evaluation and eligibility of students with communication disorders in U.S. public schools using quantitative and qualitative research and publications (presented as chapters) over the span of a career drawn together through an exegesis. Part 1 includes 7 chapters and provides an introduction and literature review that examines the SLPs’ practice patterns and documents the unique requirements for public-school practice in the United States. Chapter 2 reviews public policy and Chapter 3 discusses educational requirements and provides the context of public policy in the United States. A review of evaluation and eligibility requirements under IDEA and research on evaluation practices focusing on students from diverse backgrounds, test accuracy, and state differences are included in Chapter 4. Clarification regarding regulations, guidance and information to support understanding of guidelines and severity rating tools used by states as they implement IDEA is presented in Chapter 5. Options for services to support students with language differences, not disorders, outside of IDEA are detailed in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 integrates research and policy in the United States and addresses the implementation of research on children with speech sound disorders in the context of IDEA.

Part 2 includes six chapters and addresses the complex activity system involving team decision-making regarding evaluation and eligibility for speech-language pathology services in U.S. schools. Chapter 8 presents the theoretical framework that was used as the unifying approach to this thesis and for the study reported in Chapter 9. The chosen theoretical framework, Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) by Engström (1987, 2015), was used to explain the complex activity system of speech-language pathology services in U.S. schools. Chapter 9 investigates the team decision-making activity system for determining student eligibility for speech or language services in U.S. schools and documents nine major tensions related to the team decision-making activity system. Chapters 10, 11, and 12 document SLPs’ use of evidence-based practices and language sample analysis techniques. Variations in evaluation and eligibility decision-making often are attributed to the SLP, rather than the team decision-making system. The impact of differences in state and local regulations and policy, input from other members of the team, and variations in requirements for use of specific tools for evaluation were identified. Knowledge of the individual elements within the team decision-making activity system and the interactions and tensions that arise between elements may assist in understanding practice patterns of SLPs in U.S. schools. There are common tensions experienced by school SLPs regarding evaluation and eligibility of students. Using the CHAT framework enables acknowledgment of the interplay of elements within the broader activity system (beyond the SLP) and promotes the importance of teamwork and advocacy by SLPs at the local, state and national level. Inconsistency and tensions in school team decision-making are well documented in the research literature. Once identified, information on inconsistency and tensions can be used to develop of strategies to improve practice. The findings identify needs and solutions to strengthen school teams’ and SLPs’ knowledge of the regulations, research, and advocacy to address challenges in the school setting. Use of evidence-based practices for evaluation and compliance with IDEA regulations for data collection and decision making will reduce mis- and overidentification and protect students’ civil rights. Improving consistency by school decision-making teams will enable all students to receive quality evaluations and appropriate decision-making regardless of where they live or attend school. Consistency in evaluation and eligibility processes is essential to advance SLPs’ professional practice and build or maintain trust between families, students, and public-school professionals across the United States.

Marie Ireland celebrating


Tuesday 25 July 2023

Early Learning Matters Week 24-28 July

This week is Early Learning Matters Week. This year’s theme is ‘Learning through connection’. Children have been learning through their connection to community and place on this land for over 60,000 years. Early Learning Matters Week this year is celebrating this connection and the ongoing connection that is fostered in early learning settings across the country.

Organised by Early Childhood Australia, Early Learning Matters Week brings together early childhood educators, parents, carers and community leaders around Australia to raise awareness and understanding of the importance of early learning and the difference the profession makes.



Supporting educators’ emotional work with infants and their families around transitions at the start the day

The following paper has just been published.

Dolby, R., Friezer, B., Hughes, E., Page, J. & Meade, V. (2023) Supporting educators’ emotional work with infants and their families around transitions at the start the day, Early Years, 1 - 14, DOI: 10.1080/09575146.2023.2235911

Congratulations Belinda. Here is the abstract:

This article describes the professional development program, Baby Playspace Learning (BPL), and evaluates its capacity to build close relationships between educators, parents, their infants and infant peers during the morning transitions in ECEC settings. Using a pre-post design, video recordings of 20 (10 pre and 10 post) morning transitions were collected across a 12-month period and analysed for developing closeness, by measuring the frequency of triangular interactions, educators’ use of relational language and physical availability (sitting down, being still and holding infants in a curled position to relax). All measures of closeness increased significantly post-test, indicating that BPL created more opportunities for building closeness between all parties. BPL can enhance educator professionalism by showing educators how to engage in practices that help them to realise close relationships in a group setting. This gives parents, infants and infant peers the experience of belonging to a secure base culture where closeness is valued.


18th World Congress for the World Association for Infant Mental Health

 There were two fabulous presentations by ECIR members at the 18th World Congress for the World Association for Infant Mental Health, Dublin, Ireland.

  • Belinda Friezer; Linda J. Harrison; Sheena Elwick: Researcher and educator interpretations of microanalytic observations of infant sociality (Brief Oral Presentation), presented on the 18th July, 2023, SOURCE-WORK-ID: fe63c5dd-20d3-4b05-803c-6775bf92c8f7.
  • Belinda Friezer; Linda J. Harrison; Sheena Elwick: Infant-peer triads in the caregiving context of childcare, presented on the 16th July 2023, SOURCE-WORK-ID: fe63c5dd-20d3-4b05-803c-6775bf92c8f7.

Congratulations!


Friday 21 July 2023

Statistical learning or phonological universals? Ambient language statistics guide consonant acquisition in four languages

 The following paper has just been published.

Contreras Kallens, P., Elmlinger, S., Wang, K., Goldstein, M., Crowe, K., McLeod, S., & Christiansen, M. (2023). Statistical learning or phonological universals? Ambient language statistics guide consonant acquisition in four languages. In I. M. Goldwater, F. K. Anggoro, B. K. Hayes, & D. C. Ong (Eds.), Proceedings of the 45th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 3290-3296). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3wj6767p

Congratulations Sharynne and Kate. Here is the abstract:

What predicts individual differences in children’s acquisition of consonant production across languages? Considerations of children’s development of early speech production have traditionally emphasized inherent physiological constraints of the vocal apparatus that speakers generally have in common (i.e., articulatory complexity). In contrast, we propose a statistical learning account of phonological development, in which phonological regularities of the ambient language guide children’s learning of those regularities in production. Across four languages (English, Spanish, Japanese, and Korean), we utilized recent meta-analytic dataset of age of consonant acquisition spanning 28 studies. High-density measures of children's ambient language environment from over 8,000 transcripts of speech directed to over 1,000 children were used to assess how well the frequency of consonants in childdirected speech predict the age of consonant acquisition. Our results suggest that both frequency and articulatory complexity are related to age of acquisition, with similar results found for English, Spanish, Japanese, and Korean. Consonants heard frequently by children tended to be incorporated into their production repertoires earlier and consonants heard less frequently are incorporated into production repertoires later in development. We discuss future directions that incorporate a statistical learning pathway towards learning to produce the sound patterns of the ambient language.


Friday 14 July 2023

President of the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association (ICPLA)

Congratulations Sharynne McLeod on being elected President of the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association (ICPLA) for the next 4 years. Sharynne has had a long-standing relationship with ICPLA, having served as Australiasian representative from 2000-2006, then Vice President from 2006-2018. She also served on the editorial board of CLP since 2006.

ICPLA executive: Dr Alice Lee, A/Prof Joanne Cleland, Prof Sharynne McLeod, Prof Vesna Stojanovik

ICPLA19 - Poster presentations

ECIR members presented three posters at the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association (ICPLA) symposium:

  • Poster #17 Caitlin Hurley, Sharynne McLeod and Robert Anthonappa: Children’s speech and premature loss of primary maxillary incisors
  • Poster # 27 Sharynne McLeod and Julie Marshall: Accomplishment of the Sustainable Development Goals requires communication
  • Poster #36 Kate Crowe, Harpa Stefánsdóttir, Egill Magnússon, Mark Guiberson, Thora Másdóttir, Ösp Vilberg Baldursdóttir and Inga Ágústsdóttir: How is speech intelligibility measured for children who are d/Deaf or hard of hearing

Congratulations!

Kate Crowe and Sharynne McLeod


Thursday 6 July 2023

ICPLA19- Day2- Multilingual Children's Speech in 70+ languages

Today Sharynne coordinated a panel of 18 presentations over 5 hours titled "Children’s speech development in 70+ languages and dialects"


  1. Children’s speech development: Cross-linguistic considerations – Sharynne McLeod, Helen L. Blake, Australia; Kathryn Crowe, Iceland and Australia
  2. Danish children’s speech development – Marit Carolin Clausen, Denmark
  3. Dutch children’s speech development – Anniek van Doornik, Ellen Gerrits, Paula Fikkert, Mieke Beers, The Netherlands
  4. English English children’s speech development – Robert Mayr, Rachael-Anne Knight, Sally Bates, Yvonne Wren, and Sara Howard, United Kingdom
  5. Irish English speech development – Joan Rahilly, Jill Titterington, United Kingdom
  6. Scottish English children’s speech development –James M. Scobbie, Joanne Cleland, Eleanor Lawson, Sonja Schaeffler, Scotland, United Kingdom
  7. Canadian French children’s speech development – Andrea MacLeod, Daniel Bérubé, Susan Rvachew, Canada; Francoise Brosseau-Lapré, USA
  8. Swiss French children’s speech development – Margaret Kehoe, Nathalie Niederberger, Switzerland 
  9. German children’s speech development – Annette Fox-Boyer, Sigrun Lang, Germany 
  10. Standard Greek children’s speech development – Areti Okalidou, Greece; Elena Babatsouli, USA
  11. Cypriot Greek children’s speech development – Kakia Petinou, Cyprus; Elena Babatsouli, USA; Spyros Armostis, Cyprus Hungarian children’s speech development – Krisztina Zajdó, Hungary 
  12. Jamaican Creole children’s speech development – Karla N. Washington, Canada; Kathryn Crowe, Iceland and Australia; Melanie Basinger, Joseph Farquharson, USA
  13. Laki children’s speech development –Akram Ahmadi, Zahra Malmir, Iran; Michelle Pascoe, South Africa; Talieh Zarifian, Marjan Larimian, Iran
  14. Maltese children’s speech development – Helen Grech, Malta 
  15. Norwegian children’s speech development – Kristian E. Kristoffersen, Nina Gram Garmann, Hanne Gram Simonsen, Norway
  16. European Portuguese children’s speech development – Maria João Freitas, Marisa Lousada, Ana Margarida Ramalho, Portugal 
  17. Swedish children’s speech development – Sofia Strömbergsson, Inger Lundeborg Hammarström, Sweden 

It was followed by a rich discussions which considered:

  • What are the common threads you noticed?
  • Are there any surprises (AHA! moments)?
  • What are general trends across languages? How many languages follow universal trends and what languages go against those trends?
  • What will be your takeaway message for families?
  • What will be your takeaway message (clinical implications) for SLPs/educators/other professionals?
  • What theories does this speak to?

Thank you to the amazing authors who presented their languages and research so concisely yet comprehensively.


Tuesday 4 July 2023

Sheena Elwick and Lysa Dealtry publish ORICL feasibility study

 Congratulations ECIR members Sheena Elwick and Lysa Dealtry on publication of the article “Feasibility and potential benefits of the Observe, Reflect, Improve Children's Learning (ORICL) Tool: Perspectives of infant-toddler educators” in the Australasian Journal of Early Childhood.

ORICL is a new tool for Australian early childhood education and care policy-makers, practitioners, and service providers to support infant–toddler educators to observe, reflect on, assess, and improve the quality of individual children’s learning experiences.