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Speak Out
August 2013
Speech Pathology Australia
Speech Pathology Week 2013
M
any of you have asked about this year’s theme
– Start the Conversation. This is a deliberate lead
in to the International Communication Project 2014
and we want you all to be involved. All we are asking you to
do is what you do best… talk.
We can all ‘Have a Conversation about Communication’.
We can all start to raise awareness about the needs of
people with communication or swallowing difficulties in
large ways and small. We can talk to our neighbours, our
school principals, our employers, our local politicians.
We know the facts – we know the needs. We know the
consequences of continuing to ignore this problem.
We can become the squeaky wheel… and in doing so, we
can make a lasting difference to the lives of more than one
million Australians.
Every day, speech pathologists see the far-reaching, life-
changing and life-limiting consequences of communication
and swallowing difficulties.
We see the significant and preventable disadvantage
people confront as a consequence.
We know that these Australians are over-represented
in the youth justice system and are much more likely to
experience an adverse event in hospital.
We know that they have poorer health, educational and
vocational outcomes and are more prone to mental health
problems than other Australians.
Simply put, we know these people do not have the same
opportunities as other Australians and are much more
likely to be marginalised, disadvantaged and dependent on
welfare as a result.
We also know for many, if not most people, their outcomes
can be substantially improved with the right services
and the right supports. And we know our current service
systems and communities are hopelessly under resourced
and under informed to meet these needs.
But we are in the minority. Most Australians remain
completely unaware of the scale and impact of this silent
disability. How else could they tolerate this terrible state of
affairs?
There are more than one million Australians living with
communication and swallowing difficulties. That’s almost
5% of our population. Yet, despite these enormous
numbers, services are grossly under resourced or even
absent, our society is full of barriers, and our systems and
our communities are largely blind to the needs of these
people.
Typically most people think of a communication difficulty
as a temporary or relatively mild problem. A brief setback
easily overcome with a short period of readily available
intervention. Too often, it is only those with personal
experience who really know how dramatically, and
often permanently, lives are changed or even ruined by
communication and swallowing problems and how difficult
it can be to navigate the everyday world if you experience
them.
Certainly our politicians, policy makers and funding bodies
do not adequately understand the scale of the problem or
the urgent need for action and systematic reform to rectify
this shameful inequity.
It is our collective responsibility to make a difference in
the lives of all Australians living with communication and
swallowing difficulties and not just those able to access
our limited services. Therefore we are calling on all of you
to help us shine the spotlight on this dreadful imbalance.
I believe, if people genuinely understood the prevalence,
the life-changing impact and the entrenched disadvantage
so many Australians experience every day, they simply
wouldn’t stand for it and would demand action on their
behalf.
We should live in a world where the right to communication
access is a given in the same way the right to physical
access is.
There is a lot of work to do and a very, very long way to go.
But we need to start somewhere. We need coordinated,
concerted and sustained action on a large scale if we
are to inform and mobilise our communities. We need
compelling but simple messages and we need systems
change and policy support that explicitly recognises the
rights of people with communication and swallowing
difficulties to the same opportunities as everyone else.
Our global year of awareness and action, The International
Communication Project 2014, is a primary platform for
raising awareness of the need for this systematic change
in Australia and around the world. Throughout the year we
will be challenging people everywhere and at all levels of
society and government to ‘Have a Conversation about
Communication’.
More specifically, we will champion the concept of
communication as a basic human right. A right which
millions of people around the world are unnecessarily and
unfairly denied on a daily basis.
Start the Conversation
25-31 August