Speak Out
June 2014
5
Congratulations to Jane Passy – awarded an Order of
Australia medal in recent Queen's Birthday Honours List
association news
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
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.
We are very pleased
to learn
that Jane Passy has been awarded a
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
first trained in the United Kingdom.
Jane is very well regarded for her work
with children with speech and language
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
Wray Award. Jane was also a founding
member of the Society to Promote
the Essential Education of Children
with Communication Handicaps in the
1980s.
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.
ronelle hutchinson
Manager, Policy and Advocacy
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.
