Purpose: Although speech-language pathologists have provided gender-affirming voice training for trans women since the 1970s, evidence for this training's effectiveness remains weak. Our study aimed to redress limitations of earlier studies and evaluate voice training effects on outcomes important to trans women. Method: Seventy-four trans women…

There is a long-standing debate in the literature about the benefits that acoustic components of Infant Directed Speech (IDS) might have for infants' language acquisition. One of the highly contested features is vowel space expansion, which refers to the enlargement of the acoustic space between the corner vowels /i, u, a/ in IDS compared to Adult…

In early childhood centres, decontextualised talk is often associated with literacy activities. In this study, however, we investigated toddler-educator conversations across various activities with a focus on those about topics that were not related to the immediate context. We examined the communicative purposes and linguistic features of these…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between speech perception, speech production, and vocabulary abilities in children with and without speech sound disorders (SSDs), analyzing the data both by group and continuously. Method: Sixty-one Australian English--speaking children aged 48-69 months participated in this…

High school students attending Flexible Learning Programmes (FLPs) experience more speech, language, and communication needs (SLCN) than those in mainstream, which may impact their academic engagement, socioemotional health, and future employment. We explored the effectiveness of a pilot workshop designed to increase educators' confidence to…

Background: Children with phonological impairment present with pattern-based errors in their speech production. While some children have difficulties with speech perception and/or the establishment of robust underlying phonological representations, the nature of phonological impairment in children is still not well understood. Given that…

While males have predominantly held leadership positions in national-level parliaments, the rising visibility of females as heads of government, despite their underrepresentation, is a significant trend. This study investigated the political resignation speeches of four female leaders in national parliaments: Australia, England, New Zealand, and…

Critical thinking in children is a growing concern for early childhood educators; however, few studies have examined children's critical thinking in an out-of-class context. This case study aimed toward filling this research gap by examining the critical thinking of a Mandarin-speaking child aged 5 years and 8 months in an out-of-class context.…

Many Aboriginal Australian communities are undergoing language shift from traditional Indigenous languages to contact varieties such as Kriol, an English-lexified Creole. Kriol is reportedly characterised by lexical items with highly variable phonological specifications, and variable implementation of voicing and manner contrasts in obstruents…

Australian Indigenous sign languages are predominantly used by hearing people as a replacement for speech in certain cultural contexts. In some circumstances sign is used alongside speech, and in others it may replace speech altogether. This article provides a window on some of the articulatory dimensions of these sign languages by examining the…

Although the importance of developing students' academic literacies has been well-established, academic oracy has been forgotten. There is a paucity of attention to oracy in higher education, despite the key role played by students' oral communication in academic achievement and graduate employability. This study offers a scoping review of the…

Infant-directed speech (IDS) is characterized by a range of register-typical characteristics. Many of those can be objectively measured, such as acoustic-prosodic and structural-linguistic modifications. Perceived vocal affect, however, is a socio-emotional IDS characteristic and is subjectively assessed. Vocal affect goes beyond acoustic-prosodic…

This research investigated how word production is influenced by six feature-based semantic variables (number of semantic features, intercorrelational density, number of near semantic neighbors, semantic similarity, typicality, and distinctiveness). We simultaneously investigated effects of the six semantic variables on spoken picture naming in a…

Many autistic children have co-occurring behavioural problems influencing core autism symptomology potentially relevant for intervention planning. Parental Expressed Emotion -- reflecting critical, hostile and overprotective comments -- contributes to understanding and predicting behaviour in autistic school-aged children, adolescents and adults…

Education is central to creating well-informed citizens capable of participating in social and political life. However, civic education in some liberal democratic societies has often focused on teaching students the mechanics and structure of party politics, overlooking many of the public virtues that help to sustain democratic life. In this…