What the Anne McDonald Centre does

  The Anne McDonald Centre provides assessment and therapy for people -- any age, any diagnosis --with little or no functional  speech.

  If clients' speech  needs  augmentation, we find communication aids they can use.  Then we teach these clients and their support teams how to use their new voices.  Read more...

Download our brochure for more information.

Who comes to the Anne McDonald Centre?

Anyone who can’t speak – including people with diagnoses of
 Autism/ASD, Cerebral Palsy, Down syndrome, Intellectual Disability, Rett  syndrome, ABD, MND, MS, CVA, for starters...

Booking Information (Updated February 2021)

The Anne McDonald Centre appreciates how important communication support is to its clients. During the worst of lockdown we were reluctantly forced to restrict our services severely, but we're now back to the normal schedule. The Centre is making client appointments at the 538 Dandenong Road office on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and every second Friday. Some clients are seen at Rosemary Crossley's home in Brunswick on Wednesdays and alternate Fridays. 

Natalia, our Office Manager, works from 9 to 5 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If you want an appointment, call us Tuesday or Thursday on 03 9509 6324 or email us at admin@annemcdonaldcentre.org.au at any time. 

The Centre's Epidemic Policy can be found here (thanks to the Policy Bank at Our Community).  We will review the situation regularly and will make whatever changes are required to minimise exposure to risk.

Please ring 03 9509 6324 if you have any queries.

Rosemary Crossley, Director

WHAT'S NEW - 

Victor,  Mitch, and Tim, three of the Centre's clients ,took their message to the 2018 conference of AGOSCI, the Australian national communication therapist's conference, on the Gold Coast.  See what they said here.

SBS: The Feed

There's been quite a good documentary on communication difficulties on the SBS, and our Director and many of her clients get a chance to say what's wrong with the system.  You can find it here.

HREC

The Anne McDonald Centre has now established a Human Research Ethics Committee to guide its research activities. 

Do you know anybody whose intelligence has been underestimated because they've been tested using the WISC or the WAIS, tests which require speech? 

The Anne McDonald Centre is breaking new ground here - and bringing hope to thousands. See the results we're getting. This is genuinely exciting, and everybody who can't speak needs to know about it.   

The Anne McDonald Centre now has the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission ACNC CHARITY TICK! So it's a good time to donate - see the DONATE link to GiveNow over to the right there and down a bit. Help us to help you.

The Anne McDonald Centre calls on the government to fund iPads for AAC

Communication disability and Moby Dick

A piece on non-speech communication that ran the other day on the No Limits program on community television station C31 - including a panel discussion that includes Leane Leggo, the Centre's eloquent president

Here's a short video on the Centre made by Rebecca Seidner, an AAC user

Rosemary Crossley's ISAAC conference  presentation,
 "iPads and the Assessment of Potential AAC users - a game changer"

 Our 2012 ISAAC conference paper, "Anne McDonald  - the advocacy legacy of an AAC pioneer" 

 "First Words", a 60 Minutes segment on people with autism learning communicate with iPads