SP 2030 Report

1. Communication accessible communities B eing able to communicate successfully is critical for our dignity, our happiness, and our development. It is a prerequisite for achievement of the basic human rights of participation, expression, access to public services, education and employment. In our clients’ words:

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Successful communication is a two-way process and is dependent on the skills of both parties. We will continue in our role of supporting people with communication difficulties to express themselves and understand others, and also recognise the need to grow our role in working with the people with whom those with communication difficulties seek to communicate. We will build their skills and make appropriate resources available in the community so everyone can communicate successfully as consumers, clients, friends, employers, employees, audiences, and advocates. Through building communication accessibility we will ensure everyone is treated with dignity and respect; communication partners are skilled listeners and talkers (e.g. they provide extra thinking and talking time, they know not to finish off someone’s sentences, etc.) and other methods of communicating (e.g. communication boards, speech-generating devices, switches and eue-tracking devices etc.) will be understood, and if required, their use supported. By building knowledge skills and resources, we will work to ensure that the right to communication is realised for each and every person, in every Australian community. We will embed this work around the country as core to our role. This will require a cultural change in our community and we will work hand in hand with people who have communication difficulties to lead this shift. We will advocate for the introduction of regulated minimum standards which, when implemented across our community, facilitate successful communication for any individual, experiencing any type of communication difficulty. Working directly with people with communication difficulties we will co- design, develop and implement effective and acceptable tools and resources to facilitate communication accessibility. As part of this process, we will work towards a communication access symbol reaching universal recognition, equivalent to that of the International Symbol of Access. To build community understanding and skill we will educate people about communication difficulties and their causes as well as how to support communication in day-to-day life. This process will contribute to developing widespread understanding of the role of speech pathology in assisting communication access as well as in supporting the individual needs of people with communication difficulties across the lifespan.

“This has happened to me so many times. I walk into a café and look around for something that’s ready-made, so I can just point. Or something that’s easy to say. What I really want is to be able to order something specific. I want to say ‘A ham and salad sandwich, hold the beetroot, gherkin and onion please’ and it doesn’t matter if I stutter. So many times the lady behind the counter is ready with her pad and pen, ‘Would you like to write it down, love?’ Like I’m stupid .” “There was not a lot of understanding of aphasia in our local community before. They’ve had to learn about it now though. My husband is a local government councillor and is continuing in the role. We all use strategies. The other councillors email the business to us in advance so he has time to think about it then we practise the sentences, write and type.”

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Speech Pathology 2030 - making futures happen