£25,000 awarded to the Communication Aids Service

The Communication Aids Service is part of the North East Essex Community Speech Therapy service. They provide specialist and detailed assessment for both adults and children who require electronic/computerised devices to augment and facilitate their communication, which may have been affected by stroke, cancer, learning disability and or cerebral palsy.

Ruth Myers, Clinical Lead for Adult Speech and Language Therapy, said:

“Colchester Catalyst Charity has been very generous and have awarded us a grant of £25,000 to update our equipment library. We are thrilled and delighted to accept as it will have a marked impact upon the quality of life of our patients. Some do not have the ability to communicate simple messages which can mean being unable to effectively express pain, feelings, needs – even wishing a friend Happy Birthday is beyond their limitations”

“With this grant we can now allow patients who need specialist equipment to access this much faster and we can then make a more accurate application for statutory funding for their own devices.”

They plan to purchase state of the art technology such as equipment which will allow clients who have no limb movement and no speech to access a talking computer which can be controlled simply by using their eye or head movement. The funding will also provide equipment such as a lightwriter which is a talking keyboard that has bluetooth technology.

Pictured: Chris presents a cheque for £25,000 to Ruth Myers and Sarah Wheat