News & Events
New Publications
Developing Clinical Skills in Dysphagia,
the companion volume to Dysphagia Placement Workbook, will publish mid-February 2012. Follow the link to
find out about our pre-publication offer. The book offers many materials to support the workbook activity, including clinical writing and the answers to the Workbook's
pre-placement quizzes. The accompanying DVD shows videofluoroscopy and oral motor examinations.
Forthcoming Events
Looking ahead to 2012, we will be at the Afasic event on 8 March in Southampton.
And the second conference around Towards a Positive Future is now definitely booked for Saturday 9 June at Mary Hare. More information about the conference programme and speakers will follow.
What's Gone On
We will be offering a conference discount of 15% + free postage and packing for all orders taken via our website for a period of a month after each event. This applies only to those books already, or very soon to be, published. See our Published Books section for more details.
The conference, Towards a Positive Future, hosted by Mary Hare School, Newbury was an extremely interesting day. All the presenters gave insightful and thought-provoking presentations ranging from the effects of the SEN Green Paper on literacy (Kevin Geeson, CEO, Dyslexia Action), to legal implications for children with special needs (Inez Brown from solicitors Anthony Collins LLP), a talk about the phonology screening GAPS test (Professor Heather van der Lely from Harvard University), how academies can find ways to meet the needs of students with complex needs (Charlie Mead, Consultant Child and Education Psychologist), the issues facing children, young people and their families following childhood acquired brain injury (Louise Wilkinson from the Child Brain Injury Trust), and negotiation, mediation and conflict resolution (Ian Ross and Lynne Kerry, Vievole Ltd). Janet O'Keefe introduced The Clarity Foundation, a new membership organisation that will help to build skills, capacity and opportunity within the field of special educational needs in the UK.
A second conference is provisionally booked for Saturday 21 April 2012, again at Mary Hare. Make a note for your diary - it's not to be missed.
Lost for Words Conference, 15-17 June, City University London
This amazing three-day event received massive attention and attendance and was a great success. It focused on the effects of speech language disability on children and young people, and featured presentations from a range of very eminent researchers and clinicians. However, the stars were definitely Abigail Beverley and Lavinia Scott, two young people who described what it has meant to them. Abigail and Lavinia also feature in our forthcoming book, The Impact of Communication Disability Across the Lifespan, edited by Katerina Hilari and Nicola Botting from City University London. We had a couple of proof copies of this book available, which attracted a lot of interest - many people said they couldn't wait until mid-August, when the book is due out.
NAPLIC Conference in association with the Communication Trust
Championing Better Communication: Theory, Practice and Innovation
Jim and I got up at the unearthly (to us) hour of 6.00am in order to get to Warwick University by 10.00. The journey was easy until we got past Warwick and then the AA's route map let us down. No, AA, you do not find Warwick University by going to Balsall Common. You go through Kenilworth towards Coventry, and turn left at the traffic lights.
By the time we got there, the other exhibitors had all set up - they had got up even earlier, or stayed overnight. A good range of publications was on offer, but mostly classroom assessment packs or material for teachers and parents (hardly surprising, perhaps, given that it was a NAPLIC event) and our books were definitely at a different level. However, we received a constant stream of visitors to our stand and a lot of interest was shown.
Our pre-press copy of Making Collaborative Practice Work was available, and this attracted much attention. We gave out cards directing delegates to our website in order to benefit from the 15% discount we are offering (and this applies to any buyer, whether at the conference or not). A gratifying number of flyers were taken for almost all our books and there was even one determined person who looked at Speech Prosody in Atypical Populations and muttered about buying it (we will see).
NAPLIC really helped by keeping the exhibition fee low, so many thanks to them for that, and for the smooth organisation on the day.
December 2010
We have been snowed in - twice - but although the postman has been unable to reach us and we have to walk two miles to the nearest shop through woods where the branches hang low under their frosty load, the miracles of modern technology mean that work hasn't stopped.
We now have our 11th contract out, for a book on AAC, and more proposals are promised for the New Year. The manuscripts are in for Speech Prosody in Atypical Populations and for Collaborative Practice, and we are expecting publication of these first two books in the Spring of 2011.
It's going to be a busy year - and we are very much looking forward to it.
Wishing you all a very happy Christmas and prosperous 2011.
Speech Sound Disorders: The Basics and Beyond II, 9th and 10th March 2011, York
Can I draw everyone's attention to the visit by Caroline Bowen to the UK on Wednesday 9 and Thursday 10 March 2011? Caroline is presenting on the subject of Speech Sound Disorders: The Basics and Beyond II at the ASLTIP seminar in York. This is a great opportunity to hear Caroline speak so do book now.
Please see:
Caroline Bowen visit to UK March 2011Caroline Bowen, York, March 2011
Clinical Education Conference, 31 August to 2 September 2010, City University
This three-day conference highlighted the increasing concerns over the provision of clinical placements for SLTs and looked at best practice scenarios in a number of settings. J&R Press was there for the three days, with our stand strategically placed in the refreshment room. Unfortunately, we could not attend the sessions on the Tuesday (on Dysphagia with Maggie Lee Huckabee and Gina Tillard, and Stammering with Susan Block). On the Wednesday, I sat in on the sessions on theory and practice in aphasia led by Jane Marshall and her team, and Jim heard Victoria Joffe and her passionate presentation on working with children and young people with speech, language and communication needs. The Thursday sessions comprised a model example of clinical placement from Anne Whitworth (Newcastle University), and Julie MacLaren (City University) gave an interesting talk from the perspective of the nursing profession.
So what did we learn? That delegates prefer soft chocolate to hard chocolate and any chocolate to mints...no, no, no, nothing so trivial. We learned about the needs of educators in providing clinical placements, and the concerns of those working at the coalface in accepting students. It is something that must be done in order to turn out confident and able new SLTs, and has to be done in the context of today's ever-increasing workloads.
(Do compare the accompanying picture with the one below. What a difference a few months make!)
Food for Thought (Managing Complex Dysphagia in the Community) Durham, 5 August 2010
To the beautiful city of Durham for a one-day conference organised by the Tees, Esk and Wear Vallyes NHS Foundation Trust where we were able to showcase our two forthcoming books on Dysphagia by Naomi Cocks and Celia Harding. The event attracted about 120 delegates from a range of disciplines including nurses, dieticians, SLTs and physiotherapists. Even for novices like Jim and myself, the presentations were illuminating. Jim Coyle from the University of Pittsburgh gave two talks, the first on respiration, respiratory conditions and dysphagia, and the second on community management and multidisciplinary working. Lynn Gibson from the Northumberland Physiotherapy Service gave a very thought-provoking presentation on how to identify distress cues in people with severely limited communication. Before the group split into two for workshops, Paula Leslie (also from the University of Pittsburgh but formerly from Newcastle) gave a presentation on the ‘why, what, how, when and why’ of videofluoroscopy. It was great to be involved with this event and many thanks to Hannah Crawford and Julie Bake for our invitation and the smooth-running of the day.
Social Perspectives in Acquired Communication Disorders: Colloquium 15−16 June 2010, UCL
J&R Press was proud to sponsor this colloquium and I was there both days. The event, organised by Steven Bloch and Suzanne Beeke from UCL, and Nick Miller from Newcastle attracted 25 invited researchers from as far afield as Australia and Sweden − which led to some very interesting discussions about issues such as funding!
The presentations covered a range of topics around the theme of social perspectives in acquired communication disorder, from civic participation to how perceptions of self change, from therapy for anomia to recyling in conversational interaction to name just a few. Breakout sessions looked at the clinical/research interface and research methods and questions, and again provided an opportunity for spirited discussion.
I am glad to say the sponsor money went towards the catering, which was plentiful and excellent (although I am not sure anyone will want a Danish pastry for quite some time) and our thanks to Nicola Harding for organising this for us. It was a great chance for us to meet so many people interested in this growing area of research and clinical practice.
UCL Speech and Science Library
While we were at UCL Jim and I took the opportunity to meet with Librarian Stevie Russell and her colleague Breege Whiten, who told us lots of interesting things about how library services worked and what publishers need to keep in mind. Stevie very kindly wrote a bit about us for the library blog − see http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/blog/hcs/2010/06/15/a-new-publisher-for-speech-language-therapy/
Stevie is moving to Roehampton at the end of July after 12 years at UCL, and we wish her every success in her new role.
March 2010
We are very proud to have been awarded Speechwoman’s Site of the Month Award for March 2010. Speechwoman says:
'Without doubt, Speechwoman knows promise when she sees it! So she's keeping a close eye on J&R Press who offer researchers and academics in human communication science a platform for publishing their works. Her tip is that this new company is going to be a winner in the skilled, experienced hands of Jim and Rachael Wilkie. Authors, if you have an SLP/SLT manuscript up your sleeve, or a terrific book idea, contact J&R Press. They have much to offer!' (see http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/interesting2010.htm)
Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists Research Day 4 March 2010
Jim and I haven’t had the chance to look around Newcastle for about 15 years, but what a difference. Here is a bright, busy and buzzy city, where a lot of regeneration has gone on but where the past hasn’t been swept away. So gracious sweeps of impressive stone edifices live side-by-side with modern glass or multi-coloured buildings, and it all seems to work very well. A pleasure to visit.
And what about the Research Day? Very much like Newcastle, actually: bright, busy and buzzy. The organisation was superb, the food plentiful, and the presentations were all thought-provoking and intensely interesting.
Hazel Roddam, deputy chair of the RCSLT, was kind enough to mention J&R Press in her presentation about the research environment for SLTs. Talking about the need for dissemination and the need to encourage clinicians to submit to peer-reviewed publications, she said how important it is that SLTs publish and said that it would be “a strength to work with them [J&R Press] in the future”.
We also unfurled our banner for the first time, and had a table with flyers and some sample covers for people to look at. We had some great conversations with people interested in what we want to do − all in all, a very good day. Thank you, Royal College.
And talking about Hazel Roddam, when I worked for John Wiley & Sons Ltd, I commissioned her and Jemma Skeat for a book on evidence-based practice. This has just been published as Embedding Evidence-based Practice in Speech and Language Therapy: International Examples. The SBN is 0470 743298, and the book is very sensibly priced at £29.99. Check it out on Amazon or on the Wiley website.
ASTLIP Conference 13 March
Rachael is going to be at the event at lunchtime on Saturday 13 March, handing out flyers and generally talking to people.