SpeakOut_June2014_eCopy_FINAL

association news

From left: Opening the Melbourne Hearings were Sen Dean Smith, Sen Rachel Siewert, Cori Williams, Robyn Stephen, Tim Adam (seated), Deborah Theodoros, Gail Mulcair and Gaenor Dixon. Following presentations included those by Associate Professor Pamela Snow (pictured below) and the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Centre of Research Excellence in Child Language, Melbourne Cleft Service (Royal Chidren's Hospital) and the Alfred Child and Youth Mental Health Service.

Finally, we need high quality information from reliable sources to tell us how many, and who are the Australians who suffer from these conditions. We need information about the economic impact of untreated communication and swallowing disorders. What is the cost in terms of avoidable health care, reduced education and unemployment? We need better information on communication disorders in Aboriginal Australians and how we might service this unique population. We need information about cost effectiveness so that we can ensure public funds are directed to the most evidence-based services. Because communication and swallowing problems are faced by such diverse

groups of people, because services are funded and delivered across so many sectors and because these services are funded by different levels of government – no one has taken responsibility to help these Australians. Communication disorders need to be made a national priority. Thank you for inviting us to appear before you today. I know you have received many submissions from people describing their own, often heart breaking stories, of how communication or swallowing disorders have impacted their lives. I believe that these stories relay a common experience of a diminished human right to have the opportunity to problems and was instrumental in developing a school-based language unit in the Frankston area of Victoria. She is recognised for her development and publication of the Cued Articulation System, and for her extensive teaching of speech pathologists in the use and application of Cued Articulation. The Cued Articulation System remains current and in clinical use to this day. Jane’s important work was acknowledged by SPA in 1988 when she received the Association’s Elinor

communicate and engage in community life. In Australia, we do little to support these people in their right to communicate, and it’s not just a shame, it is shameful that we leave so many without a voice and effectively bar them from participating in Australian life. We hope that our time with you in this half hour can shed some light on the specifics about what we think the Commonwealth Government can do to improve data governance, raise awareness, identify problems earlier, and increase access to treatment, in order to improve the lives of over a million Australians who suffer from speech, language or swallowing disorders.

Congratulations to Jane Passy – awarded an Order of Australia medal in recent Queen's Birthday Honours List

We are very pleased to learn that Jane Passy has been awarded a

Wray Award. Jane was also a founding member of the Society to Promote the Essential Education of Children with Communication Handicaps in the 1980s.

medal of the Order of Australia for service to community health as a speech pathologist. Jane practiced in Australia and overseas for many years, having

Congratulations to Jane for this prestigious recognition of her

contribution to our profession and to the lives of the many children and families her work has touched.

first trained in the United Kingdom.

Jane is very well regarded for her work with children with speech and language

ronelle hutchinson Manager, Policy and Advocacy

Speak Out June 2014

5

www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au