Pat Dugdale

Managing editor Professor Graeme Kennedy said the project had developed the most advanced computer database in the world for analysing and recording sign language.

The new Wellington field office is playing its part in other developments of interest to deaf people, such as the spread of total communication and the growing importance of the Wellington Deaf Society.

To mark the centenary of the birth of Helen Keller on June 27, 1880, Pat Dugale has written about unusual experiences in her life.

The deaf defendant in the aborted Wanganui murder trial has no legal right to an interpreter, through the Justice Department says it is providing one.

A field officer for the deaf, Mr David Chilwell, a former president of the Christchurch Deaf Club, has been appointed in Christchurch as a result of a grant from the Lottery Funds Board.

There is still much lack of understanding among the general public about the needs of deaf people, says Pat Dugdale, field officer in Wellington for the New Zealand Association of the Deaf.

Deaf people have had unfair trials through lack of interpreters telling them what is happening in courts.

One of the New Zealand Association for the Deaf’s priorities is to get interpreters for the profoundly deaf. This was the message in a speech from Mrs Pat Dugdale.

The new field officer for the deaf, Pat says “…deaf people are not morons.”

In the past 18 months, the NZAD has opened field offices in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington, and hopes soon to establish two more in Nelson and Dunedin.

Wellington has a new worker among the deaf. Pat Dugdale, profoundly deaf, has been made field officer by the New Zealand Association of the Deaf. Her job is to provide personal social service help and to liaise with organisations, welfare agencies, commercial institutions and lawyers on behalf of the deaf.

Wellington Deaf Society secretary, Pat Dugdale, is expecting 200 people from around New Zealand to take part in its 50th anniversary celebrations.

Profoundly deaf people, particularly those deaf from birth of an early age, have needs which are not being met by the existing psychiatric services and institutions, says Pat Dugdale, Field Officer for the New Zealand Association of the Deaf.