SRAE Seek, Eat and Speak for Aphasia!

To celebrate June as “Aphasia Awareness Month”, the Aphasia Awareness Committee of Alberta held its Second Annual event, “Seek, Eat and Speak for Aphasia,” on

 Sunday, June 5, 2011 with the Stroke Recovery Association Edmonton (SRAE) picnic.

This successful event was held at one of the picnic sites at Hawrelak Park.  It was attended by people in the community living with Stroke and/or Aphasia, Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) from Edmonton, SLP Masters Students from the U of A, family and friends, and the members of the public.  Everyone enjoyed the great weather, the free, fabulous BBQ, door prizes, and games and trivia to help everyone understand Aphasia a little more.  Close to 100 people learned about Aphasia and how it can affect people’s lives, which brought us closer to our goal of spreading the word about Aphasia to the public!

 A big thanks to the organizing committees as well as the great volunteers that helped make the event a success, especially the student SLPs from the University of Alberta, all those who donated door prizes, monetary support, and food, and the SRAE for their support.

The Aphasia Awareness Committee and Stroke Recovery Association Edmonton hopes to see you all at next year’s event, which promises to be even more fun!

Aphasia is a communication problem which often occurs after a stroke.  It can affect someone’s ability to talk, understand, read, write or any combination of these. Intelligence remains intact, but communicating with others becomes difficult.