The Big Event

"H-h-h-h-hey are y-y-you gonna get up?", a little voice whispers as you feel a gentle tug on your sleeve from a little hand. You slowly roll to your side on your bed to face your 3-year-old boy who is gazing up at you with his bright, hopeful, curious eyes. You can't help but smile at one of the best things to ever happen to you.

Since he's filled your life with so much joy, and because he's your absolute world, you want him to have the best life he can possibly have. The only problem is, he stutters. You know it doesn't change who he is, but other kids can be mean, and he won't ever feel like he can communicate with the world if he can't communicate how he's feeling. You want to put him through speech therapy, but where do you start? Can you afford it? What if the Australian government said they could financially help you put him through speech therapy, but only if they got to choose his therapy program? What would you do?

I've been researching the debate this parent would be going through in their head regarding Australia's recent budget proposal for providing Medicare benefits for children going through speech therapy, as long as they are a part of the Lidcombe program. I'll be discussing in this blog post the main event that sparked this debate.

So what did start it all?

My topic is very easy to narrow down to one single, prompting event. It all began when Speech Pathology Australia came out with their proposal for the 2015-2016 budget.

evilmonkeyfishturtle "Speak no Evil" 1/14/2009 via Deviant Art. Attribution licensing.