Sarah's royal meeting at ACE

Sarah Chandler, who lost her speech and the effective use of all her limbs when she was seven through two devastating strokes, is eagerly looking forward to chatting to Princess Anne in December. Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal will be visiting the ACE Centre, an Oxford-based children’s charity, to see how the lives of children with severe communication difficulties are being transformed by technology.

Sarah’s life changed through the help of the ACE Centre, who introduce technology like the ‘talking computers’ used by Stephen Hawking to children who struggle to communicate because of their disabilities. With the help of a specialised computer with an artificial voice, Sarah, who’s now 21, controls her talking communication aid just by moving her eyes and she’s working out what she’ll say to The Princess Royal when she meets her.

Sarah is pictured below with her eye-gaze computer.

“Without the ACE Centre we wouldn’t have the hope and the support for Sarah to succeed with the communication aid, which we absolutely love,” said her mother Paula.

The Princess Royal, who is visiting the ACE Centre on 4 December in her role as Patron of the College of Occupational Therapists, will see first-hand how the therapists, teachers and technologists at the Centre work together to discover how technology can help young people to communicate, learn and influence their own lives, often for the first time.

Dr Ben Jabuni, the Director of the ACE Centre, said, “It’s great that The Princess Royal has agreed to visit us on the occasion of our 25th anniversary celebration of delivering services to support children and young people with complex physical and communication difficulties. Her visit to our centre is a mark of recognition of the valuable contribution of our occupational therapists and the difference they are making to the lives of these children and young people.”

One of the highlights of the The Princess Royal’s visit will be a demonstration of the technology that has helped Sarah so much - computers that can be controlled simply by eye movement. “There’s virtually nowhere in the UK where so many of the current range of eye-gaze equipment can be found in one place and be available for independent trialling.” said Ben.

Sarah will be meeting The Princess Royal along with other members of the ACE Centre’s Chatterbox Club, where she enjoys spending time with other children with similar disabilities, taking part in activities such as painting, cooking or drama. The Chatterbox Club is an invaluable chance for both parents to spend time with one another in a fun environment, while also having access to friendly and helpful professionals.

Last updated: 18/11/09