Sydney National Conference 2017

Featured Presenters

Wednesday 31 May

9.00am - 10.30am

WKP: Keynote Presentation: Conceptualising “Dose” in speech-language interventions: Current findings and future directions Provision of speech-language services involves specifying the dose of the intervention to be delivered; speech- language therapists make presumably crucial decisions about the duration of a course of treatment, the length of individual sessions, and the overall volume of ‘active ingredients’ embedded within individual sessions. What is treatment dose and is it important? In this keynote, Laura defines dose in relation to provision of speech-therapy services for treatment of language and speech disorders in children and adults. She discusses the current state of the evidence regarding the relation between dose and treatment outcomes. Finally, Laura provides recommendations for clinicians in how to carefully examine the dose of their own interventions and the profession for moving forward regarding this important dimension of our services. W1A: Keynote Seminar Presentation: Powering up our vocabulary intervention approaches: Applying robust vocabulary techniques to speech-language intervention (S) Many children with developmental language disorder exhibit lags in their vocabulary growth; not surprisingly, vocabulary goals are often included in children’s treatment plan. Improving children’s vocabulary skills can improve basic communication processes, but also may contribute to improved reading comprehension in the short and long- term. A large, growing body of research points to the importance of "robust vocabulary intervention" as a means to improve children’s vocabulary skills across the continuum of preschool to adolescence. This seminar will describe vocabulary development and intervention using the lens of robust vocabulary intervention, focusing on: (a) Selection of words, and (b) Implementation of empirically supported techniques for promoting knowledge of these words. The overall goal of this seminar is to translate research on vocabulary intervention into everyday practices implemented within classroom or clinical settings. Prerequisite: Knowledge of language acquisition Wednesday 31 May

Dr Laura Justice Dr Laura Justice is EHE Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology at The Ohio State University. She is also Executive Director of the Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy and the Schoenbaum Family Center. Laura is interested in identifying ways to more effectively support the early language and literacy development of children experiencing risk, including children with communication disorders and children living in poverty. Justice is the author of more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, appearing in such journals as Child Development; Psychological Science; Developmental Psychology; Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research; and American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. She is also the author of two major textbooks in Communication Sciences (Communication Sciences and Disorders: A Contemporary Perspective, and Language Development: Theory of Practice). Laura is heavily involved with literacy promotion in international contexts, including ongoing work scaling up a parent-child reading program in indigenous Maya villages in eastern Mexico.

11.00am – 12.45pm continued 2.15pm – 3.45pm

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