Speak Up

In this week’s episode, we are celebrating NAIDOC Week. SPA’s First Nations Lead, Nikita Westbury, speaks with Professor Chelsea Watego, a Munanjali and South Sea Islander woman with a career spanning 20 years in Indigenous healthcare, research, advocacy, and innovation. Nikita and Chelsea discuss what transformative change looks like when we talk about eliminating racism, facilitating self-determ...

In this week’s rebroadcast, Anneke Flinn and Robyn Stephen, Director and Principal Clinician at Melbourne Child Development, and Speech Pathology consultant at Melbourne Paediatric Specialists, discuss the speech pathologist’s role in Autism diagnosis. SPA and the presenters of this podcast acknowledge that this episode was originally recorded in 2024. As terminology and perspectives evolve over t...

In this rebroadcast episode from Season 6, members of SPA’s early career and podcast reference groups, Brittany Fong and Lauren Osborne, speak with mental health occupational therapist Michelle Bihary. They discuss the mental and emotional “wear and tear” of working in healthcare and practical self-care strategies. The episode opens with a reflection from SPA’s Immediate Past President, Kathryn Mc...

In this week’s episode, we’re celebrating Pride Month. Jess is joined by Majella Jones, dietitian and PhD candidate, to discuss their research on improving education outcomes and student confidence when working with transgender and gender diverse people. They explore how embedding discipline specific content into core curricula can create more inclusive, competent future practitioners. Speech Path...

In this week’s episode, we discuss the mental health needs of people with complex communication support needs (CCN). We speak with Nerida Kho, speech pathologist, and Connor Bryant, counsellor, both from CEQ about what they have learned while supporting the unmet mental health needs of people with CCN. They speak about the challenges of adapting complex concepts, like emotions into multimodal comm...

In this week’s episode, we speak with Dr Emma Kate Thome from Boys Town National Research Hospital in the USA about identifying and managing pseudoscientific practices in speech pathology. Dr Thome shares what pseudoscience is, why it can be appealing to both practitioners and service users, and the real-world risks it poses to evidence-based care. For access to the STOP scale, contact Dr Thome at...

In this week’s episode, we celebrate National Reconciliation Week with a conversation led by SPA’s First Nations Lead, proud Wonnarua woman Nikita Austin. Joining Nikita are Bronte Ramm, a proud Murri woman, speech pathologist and counsellor, and Olivia Coe Fox, a proud Wiradjuri woman, aspiring teacher, and the first person to sing in an Aboriginal language on The Voice Australia. Olivia, Bronte...

In this week’s episode, Liz Bell and Dr Rosemary Hodges speak with guest host Olivia Parkinson, about delivering supports in therapeutic blocks. Rosie and Liz, discuss some of the enables and barriers to shifting to a model of therapy blocks, as well as some of the benefits they have encountered. Liz and Rosie also discuss how to select, or design PROMs to most accurately measure and report the pr...

In this week’s episode, we speak with Professor Nerina Scarinci, who will be delivering the Elizabeth Usher memorial lecture at the SPA Conference in Yugembah, also known as the Gold Coast, in June this year. Nerina speaks about the way that centring relationships can result in improvement in the services we deliver. Nerina discusses how relationship centred care can support cultural safety from t...

In this week’s episode we speak with the authors of “Navigating choice: eating, drinking, and decision-making at end of life for individuals with cognitive impairment” about the vital role speech pathologist play in end-of-life and palliative care. Dr Laura Chahda, Laura Knauer, Darcy Long, Druvni Perera, and Sanora Yonan discuss their recent publication, and how we as speech pathologists can feel...

In this week’s episode, Nikita Austin (Wanaruah Nation), SPA's First Nations Lead, speaks with Dr Grant Bruno (Samson Cree Nation) from the University of Alberta in Canada, and Dr Samarra Toby (Gangulu, Northern Cheyenne, Australian South Sea Islander, Darumbal, Iman Nations) a GP and founder of the Native Academy of Space, Science and Innovation. They discuss Indigenous ways of understanding and...

This week’s episode was recorded at the 2025 SPA conference in Adelaide or Tarntanya. This episode we speak with Professor Kirrie Ballard, and Dr Jacqui McKechnie about thinking flexibly when planning adaptable supports. Although this was recorded some time ago the conversation holds value for those who are considering how to adapt their services to a changing environment, like the introduction of...

To celebrate Earth Day on April 22nd 2026, we are rebroadcasting our earth day episode from last year, where we speak with Dr. Abby Foster, and Suzanne Mungall, speech pathologists, about Earth Day, coming up on April 22nd. Suzanne and Abby share their experiences about speech pathology and climate change, and why they feel the urgent need for health professionals to address the impacts of climate...

In this week’s episode we speak with Dr Josephine Bampoe about the Ghanaian English assessment tool she created, and learnings that speech pathologists can apply to practice and research. She discusses multilingual assessment, converging evidence, principles of co-design, and global engagement that is ethical, multi-directional, and sustainable. Resources: Application of a framework for culturally...

In this week’s episode, Dr Elizabeth Murray (SPA Thriving Kids Reference Group) speaks with Denise Imms (Thriving Kids Advisory Group) and Dr Erin West (SPA Manager Policy and Advocacy) about the forthcoming Thriving Kids program. They discuss what is known and what has not yet been announced about universal and targeted supports, misconceptions, and steps practitioners can take now to prepare for...

In this week’s episode, Professor Tanya Serry from La Trobe university and co-founder of the SOLAR lab, speaks about the systematic synthetic phonics approach to reading. Tanya speaks about the role speech pathologists can play in research, and trends or changes in reading instruction over the years. Tanya also worked on the upcoming revised guidance about literacy for members. SPA resources: Chil...

In this week’s episode, we recognise Swallowing Awareness Day by speaking with Stacey Baldac, SPA's Chief Speech Pathology Advancement, about a research project co-designed with people living with dysphagia. Stacey shares the importance of person-centred meals, communication, and collaboration in making mealtimes safe and enjoyable. Resources: UTS What's got us talking podcast: https://open.spotif...

In this episode we are rebroadcasting an episode from 2024 and reflect on the how a flexible approach to service delivery can improve the accessibility, adaptability, and efficacy of our supports There are many unknowns in the lead up to changes such as the introduction of Thriving Kids, and flexibility may help us weather these changes. We speak with Tania Kelly, Yadanar Tut, and Gaenor Dixon fro...

In this week’s episode, we speak with Amanda Hartmann about her experience with developing skills and confidence when working with AAC users. Amanda reflects on the changes over the time she has been a speech pathologist and shares some of her learnings. Speech Pathology Australia acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of lands, seas and waters throughout Australia, and offers our respect to Elde...

In this week’s episode, we speak with Philippa Edwards, head of special education, and Haley Moran-Green, speech pathologist, who have been collaborating on how to improve classroom engagement for students with complex communication needs (CCN), in a central Queensland school. Haley and Philippa discuss how they supported teachers to understand how to create an aided language display (ADL) specifi...

In this week’s episode we are joined by Mary and Nicole from SPAs Regulation team to discuss the updated processes for overseas qualified speech pathologists to work in Australia. Nicole and Mary discuss the updates to the process for a speech pathologist who has trained in a country other than Australia, and how they can apply to have their qualifications recognised to work in Australia. Resource...

In this week's episode, we explore how speech pathology reports can better support students when they’re written through a collaborative lens. SPA's Nathan Cornish-Raley is joined by Dr Sharon Klieve and Dr Hannah Stark from the University of Melbourne to unpack insights into teacher perspectives, accessible report writing, and practical recommendations that make a difference in classrooms. They h...

In this week’s episode, we explore an innovative practice education model where students receive interprofessional supervision to provide supports to First Nations communities in a rural area. In the first half of the episode, we speak with Ngarrindjeri woman and Aboriginal health worker, Bethany Kropinyeri, and physiotherapist, Meekah Zangari, who support students at the Riverland Mallee Coorong...

In this final episode of the summer listening series Nicole Hatch, Speak Up podcast reference group member reflects on the conversation about supporting new graduates in transitioning into the workforce originally from 2023. Practice owners Ishwari Samarakoon and Nicola Dann discuss the supports supervisors can offer, and then early career professional Steven Pitt and then new graduate speech path...

In this week on the summer listening series, Speech Pathology Australia’s First Nations Lead, Nikita Austin, a proud Wanaruah woman, reflects on the necessity of culturally safe practices as discussed in an episode from season five. Speech Pathology Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Committee members from 2023, discuss cultural safety in speech pathology practice. The pane...