Get involved
There are many ways you can support our research.
- People with brain injury: Take a survey about our new virtual clinic or sign up for the social-ABI-lity course.
- Family members and friends: Take a survey about our new virtual clinic or sign up for the interact-ABI-lity course.
- Health professionals: Take a survey about our new virtual clinic or sign up for the interact-ABI-lity course.
- Student health professionals: Take a survey about our new virtual clinic or take part in a focus group about how students could use an AI agent to learn to communicate with people with brain injury.
Our current projects
Coming soon: The Social Brain Toolkit Virtual Clinic
We’re working on a new way to support people with traumatic brain injury (TBI) in building their communication skills.
In this virtual clinic, people with TBI will work with speech pathology students, guided by our experienced educators. Peer mentors (other people with a brain injury) will also be part of the team. The clinic will be online and open to English speaking adults in Australia living with TBI.
We’re planning the clinic, and your voice matters. We want to hear from people with TBI, their family, health professionals and speech pathology students.
Co-design of an AI conversational agent to enhance student health professionals’ communication with people with ABI
Are you a student studying speech pathology, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, or another allied health degree? Or are you a clinical practice educator in allied health? We’re inviting students and practice educators to take part in workshops at the University of Sydney.
You’ll share your experiences and ideas to help co-design an AI learning tool that supports students to communicate more effectively with people who have ABI.
Participation is voluntary and open to those aged 18 years or older. You can choose to take part in one or more workshops.
Work together to improve conversations after brain injury
This online program is for people with brain injury and their carers to improve conversations together, with support from a speech pathologist.
- Progress through seven modules about conversations after brain injury
- Record and reflect on conversations to learn and see your progress
- Get feedback from your speech pathologist as you practise
- Connect to videocalls with your speech pathologist
convers-ABI-lity is running at the University of Sydney student speech pathology clinic. Read more here about the clinic. You can call (02) 9351 9539 or email to find out more.
Speech pathologists interested in using convers-ABI-lity in the future can complete this form.
Participate in training to improve social media skills after brain injury
We are looking for people who have an acquired brain injury who are interested in learning more about using social media after their injury.
We are asking people to:
If you would like to find out more about the course or the Facebook groups, please contact Dr Melissa Brunner on [email protected].
- complete an online social media training course (2 hours), and
- practice their social media skills in a closed Facebook group (for 8 weeks).
A tool to improve your interactions with people with a brain injury
interact-ABI-lity is a free short course designed for family members, friends, support workers, and professionals working in brain injury.
- Hear from people with a brain injury and their family members
- Learn about communication changes
- Learn how to support people with their communication
- Gain a certificate of completion
For more information, contact Dr Rachael Rietdijk on [email protected].
What do people with TBI think about the pictures used in speech pathology story tasks?
Researchers at the Hunter Brain Injury Service and University of Newcastle want to find out what people with TBI think about pictures used in speech therapy.
Would you like to participate, or have questions about the study? Please contact Dr Joanne Steel at the University of Newcastle at [email protected].
TBI Research Registry
If you would like to stay informed or be involved in our future research projects, please contact Professor Leanne Togher on [email protected] to be included in our TBI Research Registry.
The Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Research Registry is a contact list to support our research to improve services for people with communication difficulties after a traumatic brain injury, their family members, and friends.