Holiday writing

I have been working on a writing project over the holiday period while looking after this handsome little man. Housesitting for my friends Jessica and Jay over the holidays means that I have gotten to know Ratdog, who turns out to be an excellent writing companion!

Christmas in New York

My first American Christmas was spent with my good friends. It was so nice to be included and experience the warmth and generosity of the people I have met in the US.

Students bring the festive spirit to dorms

RIT's little Christmas tree outside the Gene Polessini Center

Christmas was spent with my gorgeous coach Vincent and his family

Commuting in a NY winter

When figure skating in Australia I used to arrive at the rink in a t-shirt and a bag full of sweatshirts. My first New York winter has taught me that the opposite can also be true. This is how I need to dress to survive the 5 minute walk to the rink in winter!

GFSC Christmas Show

Genesse Figure Skating Club held its annual holiday show at the Gene Polisseni Center tonight. There were all manner for performances from senior level skaters through to learn to skate children with their helmets clad in Christmas wrapping and bows. The Genesse Synchronized Skating Team also performed our rousing program for the entertainment of our friends and family.

Exploring a wintery campus

The students have all left campus for their winter break so it was time to head out and experience the snow. Standing in thigh high in snow piles, realising that the pond was less frozen than I had thought, successfully making a snow angel and unsuccessfully making a snow man! It was a fun afternoon  exploring our gorgeous campus.

Berries in winter

My first ever snow angel!!

RIT woods in the winter snow

Fulbright Enrichment Seminar in San Diego

I was selected to attend the Fulbright Visiting Scholar Enrichment Seminar “Strengthening Democracy while Protecting Human Rights” to be held in San Diego, California from Sunday, December 11th through Wednesday December 14th, 2016.

All the talks and activities focused on advocacy for individuals and groups who have voices that often cannot or will not be heard. We had a busy and stimulating agenda that included lectures addressing transgender issues, Black Lives Matter, the rights of LBGQT youth, community approaches to addressing radicalization, and surviving torture. As well as a traditional trolley tour of San Diego, a had a tour City Heights where we were introduced to people and initiatives trying to support the most vulnerable citizens of San Diego. We were also able to travel to the US-Mexico border where we spoke with immigration advocates and US Border Patrol officers.

Fulbright Scholars attending the Enrichment Seminar

Visit to San Diego

I have arrived in San Diego a few days ahead of the even I will be attending here. It was a good chance to meet some of the locals and get a feel for the sun and sand of the west coast.

Snow in Rochester before I left for my plane

New hostel friends: Olivia from Sweden (currently nannying in the US mid-West).
We shared a massive entree and went to see the San Diego Symphony Orchestra 

Visiting the locals at San Diego Zoo

Watching some talented surfers at La Jolla Shores

Visiting the seals at La Jolla and enjoying seeing the sun!

ASL I - It's a wrap!

Today was the last day of my ASL I class. It has been a huge learning curve and I have enjoyed the teaching style and friendship of my teacher very much.

Submitting my final expressive ASL exam

Study 2: Complete

Study 2 is now complete. Today the last students completed the typicality and categorisation tasks that we will be spending the next months, transcribing, analysing, and writing up!

Research Group Meeting

Today was the annual meeting of Professor Sharynne McLeod's PhD and postdoctoral students. This year the meeting was held at the Charles Sturt University campus at Sydney Olympic Park. In attendance were PhD students Anna Cronin, Suzanne Hopf, Nicole McGill, and Ben Pham, and postdoctoral colleagues Sarah Masso, Sarah Verdon, and myself. We all presented about our current research projects and progress and shared anecdotes and advice.

This was a great opportunity for me to share my Fulbright experience with the group and reflect on what I have gained and shared so far in this journey.

Sharing Australian Cuisine

We had a dinner for Pep Band tonight and it was time share an important part of Australian culture with my friends and introduce them to Anzac cookies. They were very well received!

Genesse Synchronized Skating Team

Today was my debut US synchronised skating competition with the Genesse Synchronized Skating Team. We drove to Skaneateles in the Finger Lakes region of northern New York for the 26th Annual Skaneateles Figure Skating Invitational. We came away with a silver medal and many good memories.

Study 1: Complete

Our Study 1 examining semantic fluency wrapped up today with the last participant completing tasks this afternoon. Next step is hours and hours and hours of transcription of data from spoken English and ASL (and a little Spanish, Dutch, and Korean too) before we can begin analysis.

Happy Birthday!

A very big treat tonight. Instead of the dinner with a visiting researcher I was expecting I discovered a cunning plan had been hatched within the department to give me a very special birthday dinner, which I had absolutely no idea about! Thank you to Marc for being the genius and ring-leader of the operation, and to his co-conspirators Janie, Georgianna, Dawn, and Tommie. A lovely night with the real Asian cuisine that I have been missing so much, and very good friends.

Now I'm officially part of Team CERP 

Birthday wishes from the US and Australia

Part of Charles Sturt for my office from Sharynne

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!!

This is my first American Thanksgiving (or Turkey Day) and I celebrated it with my friend Dawn and her family. There was so much fun cooking and eating and playing games with the kids, and then with the adults once the kids had fallen asleep. 

Celebrating my first Thanksgiving with friends from 3 continents and who were Deaf and hearing was such a treat.

Professional Perspectives on Working with Multilingual Children with Hearing Loss

Early this morning I completed data collection on a project examining the professional perspectives on working with multilingual children with hearing loss. Eighteen professionals participated in focus groups describing their experiences and views on working with children with hearing loss. As the participants were all in Australia and across five different states (and three time zones) all of the interviews were scheduled for the middle of the night New York time.

Discussions focused around language choices and planning, working with parents, and perceived gaps in knowledge to inform practice. Professionals included speech-language pathologists, psychologists, interpreters and teachers of the deaf, and we both Deaf and hearing.

Study 2: Phase 2

The lab component of my second study was supposed to start this morning. Study two is collecting data examining students' categorisation, category flexibility, and typicality. Participants will complete the second half of the study in lab based tasks examining the consistency of their typicality ratings,  and categorisation and re-categorisation skills.

However the weather had other plans which looked more like this ...

I have been very reliably informed that this just doesn't happen at RIT, but today it happened on my planned first day of testing. 

A '3 plow' morning outside my dorm

What do you do when you live on campus and the campus is closed? You start researching! As my schedule was not obsolete I contacted all the students participating in the study and let them know if they were stuck on campus and wanted to come and finish the study they could. All in all it was a very exciting day in which I saw 26 student over 12 hours.

SNOW!!!

Today was the first big snowfall of the season!

Global Village at RIT

1/4 Mile Underpass

The RIT (snow) Tiger

American Speech-Language-Hearing Convention 3

We made two presentations describing the results from the Sound Start Study at the ASHA convention today. 

Professor McLeod presented the main findings of the Sound Start Study 

Professor McLeod, myself, and Dr Elise Baker

McLeod, S., Baker, E., McCormack, J., Wren, Y., Roulstone, S., Crowe, K., & Masso (2016, November). Giving preschool children a Sound Start: A randomized controlled trial of Phoneme Factory Sound Sorter. Paper presented at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Convention, Philadelphia, PA.

Abstract: In this clustered randomized controlled trial the speech and emergent literacy outcomes of 120 preschoolers with speech sound disorders were examined. Intervention involved Phoneme Factory Sound Sorter computer software delivered by educators in early childhood settings. Although significant improvements were evident in both groups, there was limited difference between groups.


I presented data describing educators perspectives on the computer-based intervention used in the Sound Start Study

Crowe, K., Cumming, T., McCormack, J., Baker, E., McLeod, S., Wren, Y., Roulstone, S., & Masso, S. (2016, November). Implementing computer-based intervention for children with speech sound disorder in early childhood settings: Educators’ perspectives. Paper presented at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Convention, Philadelphia, PA.

Abstract: Twenty-two educators (teacher’s assistants or service directors) were interviewed about their experiences of implementing a computer-based intervention for preschool children with speech sound disorders in early childhood settings. Educators described personal, environmental, and intervention-specific factors that acted as barriers and/or facilitators to implementation.


I was lucky to meet Professor Emeritus David Ertmer at my session. Professor Ertmer examined my PhD dissertation in 2013 and this was the first time we had met in person.

Kate with Professor David Ertmer

American Speech-Language-Hearing Convention 2

Dr Elise Baker presented a paper on behalf of Charlotte Howland. Charlotte worked on the Sound Start Study and her Honours thesis examined data from the study. Assessment of expressive language skills in preschoolers with phonological impairment can be challenging. Often, poor speech sound production obscures realization of grammatical morphemes. This study explored whether grammatical morpheme realization differed across morphological and phonological contexts for 87 preschool children. Finite morphemes in consonant cluster contexts were the most challenging.

Howland, C., Baker, E., McLeod, S., & Munro, N. (2016, November). Grammatical morpheme realization by children with phonological impairment. Paper presented at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Convention, Philadelphia, PA.

American Speech-Language-Hearing Convention 1

Today I presented a paper based on work completed during my Master of Special Education (Sensory Disability) course of study, under the supervision of Dr Breda Carty and in collaboration with Professor Sharynne McLeod.


Crowe, K., McLeod, S., & Carty, B. (2016, November). Raising children with hearing loss in multilingual environments: Understanding the perspectives of professionals. Paper presented at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Convention, Philadelphia, PA.

Abstract: Professionals’ perspectives on spoken language multilingualism and spoken language choice for children with hearing loss were examined. The knowledge, attitudes, and practice that professionals bring to discussions with parents about communication options for their children with hearing loss are highly influential and were examined using qualitative and quantitative means.

Meeting with Dr Elise Baker

I had to opportunity to meet with Dr Elise Baker today, in preparation for the the American Speech-Language-Hearing convention in Philadelphia. Dr Baker is a senior lecture at the University of Sydney in the Faculty of Health Science with a particular interest in paediatric speech sound disorder.

Publication: The Speech Intelligibility of Jamaican Creole-speaking children

Last night we found out that our paper describing a new measure of speech intelligibility for children who speak Jamaican Creole and Jamaican English was accepted. Three of the five authors are in Philadelphia for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Convention and were able to celebrate together and plan future work.

Professor McLeod, Dr Washington and I

Washington, K. N., McDonald, M. M., McLeod, S., Crowe, K., & Devonish, H. (2016, in press November). Validation of the Intelligibility in Context Scale for Jamaican Creole-speaking preschoolers. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology.

Purpose: To describe validation of the Intelligibility in Context Scale (ICS; McLeod et al., 2012a) and ICS-Jamaican Creole (ICS-JC; McLeod et al., 2012b; Washington & Devonish Trans.) in a sample of typically-developing 3-to-6-year-old Jamaicans.

Method: One-hundred and forty-five preschooler-parent dyads participated. Parents completed the 7-item ICS (n=145) and ICS-JC (n=98) to rate children’s speech intelligibility (5-point scale) across communication-partners (parents, immediate-family, extended-family, friends, acquaintances, strangers). Preschoolers completed the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology (DEAP; Dodd et al., 2006) in English and JC to establish speech-sound competency. For this sample, we examined validity and reliability (inter-rater, test-rest, internal-consistency) evidence using measures of speech-sound production: (1) percentage-of-consonants-correct (PCC); (2) percentage-of-vowels-correct (PVC); and (3) percentage-of-phonemes-correct (PPC).

Results: ICS and ICS-JC ratings showed preschoolers were always-(5) to usually-(4) understood across communication-partners (ICS-mean=4.43; ICS-JC mean=4.50). Both tools demonstrated excellent internal consistency (α=.91), high inter-rater and test-retest reliability. Significant correlations between the two tools and between each measure and language-specific PCC, PVC, and PPC provided/demonstrated criterion-validity evidence. A positive correlation between the ICS and age further strengthened validity evidence for that measure.

Conclusions: Both tools show promising evidence of reliability and validity in describing functional speech-intelligibility for this group of typically-developing Jamaican preschoolers.

Meeting with Doctor Karla Washington

I was able to catch up with my colleague and friend Dr Karla Washington tonight, ahead of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Conference. Dr Washington works at the University of Cincinnati in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. Her areas of specialisation include child language development and disorders English-speaking and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) children, particularly speakers of Jamaican Creole, and the ICF-CY.

Kate with Dr Washington from University of Cincinnati

Meeting with Professor McLeod

Between revising journal articles and discussing our presentations for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Convention Professor Sharynne and I took some time to visit historic sights in Philadelphia. Professor McLeod is Professor of Speech and Language Acquisition at Charles Sturt University. She is the creator of the Multilingual Children's Speech website, a principal investigator of the Sound Start Study, and editor of the International Guide to Speech Acquisition.

Sharynne and Kate at the Liberty Bell

Independence Hall

The LOVE status

Visiting the American Philosophical Society

Betsy Ross' House