Supporting English-speaking professionals to work with bilingual Vietnamese-English-speaking children.
Principal Supervisor: Professor Sharynne Mcleod
Co-Supervisor: Associate Professor Sarah Verdon
Educational and health professionals often work with multilingual children who have speech difficulties. Researchers recommend that children with speech difficulties work on speech sounds in all the languages that they speak, which is challenging when the professionals supporting them do not speak the child's home language. There are limited resources available to support English-speaking professionals in this process. This project aims to: (1) Describe a process for English-speaking professionals to assess children’s speech in Vietnamese; (2) Demonstrate how to accurately identify speech difficulties in Vietnamese-English speaking children; and (3) Create and test an assessment training resource for English-speaking professionals. The resource will provide a prototype that can be replicated in other languages.
My research and training roles at Vietnamese and Australian universities, and clinical work with Vietnamese-speaking families has inspired me to pursue higher degree research. I have worked as a speech pathologist supporting multilingual children and families in south-west Sydney for more than 10 years, across NSW Health, the disability sector and private practice. I lived in Vietnam for a year, volunteering as a speech pathology trainer and clinical educator, in collaboration with Da Nang University of Medical Technology and Pharmacy, the University of Newcastle, Trinh Foundation Australia and the Kianh Foundation. In 2019, I joined the VietSpeech ARC Discovery Grant team at Charles Sturt University as a project officer. These research and clinical experiences have evoked further questions that I am passionate about exploring. I would like to contribute to the knowledge and skills base of professionals who work with multilingual families.
Certified Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia
Member of the Early Childhood Research Group, Charles Sturt University
