Join us to celebrate Speech Pathology Week
This week, Access Ability Australia is celebrating the lead up to Speech Pathology Week, and to help us, we are joined by our consultant Speech Pathologist, Jane Henderson.
Jane, Director and Principal Speech Pathologist at VersaLearn uses her expertise to consult on our resources and they are richer for it. She helps us to ensure quality control by reviewing the language used in the Access Keys that we develop as access guides for people with disability.
Jane also had significant input into our Communication Access and Awareness Training. This hour-long online course supports individuals and organisations to gain an understanding of complex communications and the strategies available to support people in a dignified and empathetic way.
Speech Pathology Week seeks to make Australians aware that communication is a basic human right. Their theme for 2022 is ‘Good Communication, Better Communities’, and that is what AAA is all about.
As we mentioned in a previous blog, people with communication difficulties can feel very isolated, particularly if the people around them have not had training in simple adaptive measures to ensure accessible communication.
We know, that by facilitating access to communication and the community, we are not only making a difference to people’s lives, but also to the communities they participate in.
We asked Jane if she could give some simple tips for those of us who know, work with, live with, or support someone with a communication difficulty. We are grateful to Jane for the following tips and we remind readers that you can book yourself, your team or your organisation in for Communication Access and Awareness Training from our website.
- Use shorter sentences.
- Pause to allow time to understand information and respond.
- Check facial expression for understanding.
- Ask the person if they want you to repeat information.
- Use visual support such as pictures or pointing to help with context.
Visit our website training page to learn more.
