Anne McDonald Centre Inc Information

The Anne McDonald Centre provides services to people who are unable to talk, or to talk clearly, as a result of conditions such as cerebral palsy, strokes, acquired brain damage, autism, Down syndrome, or intellectual impairment - anyone whose speech is not clear enough, fluent enough or reliable enough to allow them to get across everything they want to say. The Anne McDonald Centre used to be called DEAL, standing for Dignity, Education, Advocacy and Language. These are what we offer our clients. When DEAL opened in 1986 it was the first centre in Australia solely devoted to the needs of people with little or no intelligible speech. What does the The Anne McDonald Centre do for people? People with Severe Communication Impairment (SCI) and Complex Communication Needs (CCN) usually know more than they are able to say. We help people whose speech does not allow them to communicate effectively to use Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) to get their messages across. The Anne McDonald Centre (as DEAL) has provided therapy to more than two and a half thousand children and adults. We have enabled children to move from special schools into mainstream education. We have given students with communication impairments who had previously been thought to be profoundly retarded the skills to graduate from secondary school and go to university. We have given men of forty the means to tell their mothers "I love you" for the first time. The Centre's Director is Dr. Rosemary Crossley.