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Continuing Professional Development – 2014 National Tour The Association is incredibly grateful to the 2014 National Tour speaker Dr Julia Starling...

Dr Julia Starling is a speech-language pathologist with extensive clinical and research experience with populations of young people with language and literacy difficulties. This interest has led to recently completed postgraduate research at the University of Sydney targeting the nature and impact of, and interventions for, language impairment in adolescence. It has also resulted in many national and international presentations and publications. For example, Julia was an invited author for a clinical forum on language and communication disorders in adolescents in the October 2012 issue of Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools .

Julia maintains her private caseload of mainly older school aged children and adolescents, is implementing her evidence-based teacher training program in a group of Sydney schools, regularly lectures and presents seminars and workshops, and continues an active involvement in research projects. Additionally Julia is president of the Learning Difficulties Coalition of NSW.

About the National Tour workshop – Supporting older school-aged children and adolescents with language and literacy difficulties: Time for some creative thinking!

• Throughout 2014, Dr Julia Starling presented her two-day workshop in Brisbane, Melbourne, Darwin, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart, Canberra and Sydney. • During this two day workshop on supporting children of upper primary school age and adolescents with language and literacy difficulties, a range of different approaches were covered. The background and rationale for the various approaches was discussed, looking to approaches with a foundation in Clinical Best Practice (CBP) or – where available – Evidence- Based Practice. The “Nature, impact and general case management approaches” were covered during Day 1. The content of Day 2 followed on from the previous day’s discussion, and covered “Specific case • “Great workshop. Loved the practical ideas and anecdotes from personal experience. An obvious, genuine concern for this population.” • “Wonderful – great insight to theory and practical ideas. Thanks Julia.” • “Completely new perspective on working with this group.” Melbourne: • “So much helpful information to take directly into practice.” • “Julia – you are such a warm hearted, down-to-earth, caring person, and this shines through.” • “Thank you for covering a topic not often available despite the number of clinicians working with adolescents.” • “Strategies provided were very relevant. I will be able to implement these immediately and easily.”

management approaches” relating to a range of workplace settings/situations.

• Learning objectives for registrants included: Gaining an increased insight into the nature and impact of language and literacy difficulties in upper primary children and adolescent populations; Expanded knowledge of evidence-based and clinical best practice management approaches for supporting this population; A greater awareness of, and direct experience with, a wide range of language and literacy resources appropriate for both school-based and clinical service delivery. • There were a total of approximately 300 registrants across all the workshops and nearly all workshops sold out – this speaks to the respect that Dr Julia Starling is held in. Darwin: • “Helps me think about this client group more holistically and gives me practical strategies I can start using upon my return to work.” • “Has made me re-think our role in written expression and comprehension and I have come away with so many ideas that could be used now!” • “Excellent event. Great to have this needed important topic – thank you!” • “Thank you to Julia for coming to the NT!” Adelaide: • “Very generous with ideas/resources & easy to listen to.” • “Many great ideas that can be shared with teachers.” • “Loved the fact that there were a lot of practical ideas that could be easily applied in any setting. The handouts with the key take home messages were well produced and great guidelines.”

We extend our sincere thanks to Julia for sharing her knowledge and experience as the National Tour speaker. Let’s hand over to the registrants who expressed their thanks via their comments on the evaluation forms. Here are some of these comments: Brisbane:

Speak Out December 2014

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www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au