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Lauren is our daughter. He wanted to be able to read a story to her, because she was 3 ½ when he had a stroke. He could not read to her anymore and that affected their relationship, because she did not know why daddy would not read to her – rather than that he could not. For the LIFT program, you have to write some goals listing what you want out of the program … One of Bruce’s was to quite simply be able to read a story to his daughter. Now he can. – Natasha Aisthorpe speaking about her husband Bruce (Brisbane).

Canberra, 20 June • Australian Government Department of Health

• Health Workforce Australia

• Associate Professor Cori Williams, Curtin University • Services for Australian Rural and Remote Allied Health

One issue that affects all Aboriginal people is access to speech pathology services and, in particular, to appropriate services. Many of these services are not accessible to or accessed by Aboriginal people. There are many things that might be causing this – a lack of culturally appropriate or secure practices, inflexible service delivery models, especially medical models, limited numbers of Aboriginal staff, and limited cultural awareness or cultural security within the services. – Associate Prof. Cori Williams, Curtin University (Canberra)

Brisbane 27 June • Associate Professor Michael McDowell, Neurodevelopmental and Behavioural Paediatric Society of Australasia

• Autism Queensland

• Deadly Ears Program

• Hear and Say

• Association of Childhood Language and Related Disorders

• Lift Program, University of Sydney

• Australian Aphasia Association

• Apunipima Cape York Health Council

Language is both a developmental destination towards the adult language system and a developmental means for other achievements such as social and emotional abilities, literacy, school achievement, employment and all of life’s opportunities beyond school – Prof. Cate Taylor, Telethon Kids Institute (Sydney)

Senators also visited the Glenleighden School.

Obviously, we have heard that early intervention message loud and clear – Senator Rachel Siewert (Brisbane)

For the full list of organisations and individuals who appeared before the Senate Committee and the transcripts of the hearings, please see http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/Speech_Pathology/ Public_Hearings . ronelle hutchinson Manager, Policy and Advocacy

Speak Out August 2014

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www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au