Sheila MacDonald & Associates|Communicating After A Brain Injury

Our Principle

We respect each person’s unique characteristics by tailoring treatment to their preferences, interests, goals, and the demands of their home, community, school, and work lives.

We work collaboratively with the individual and their family to select goals, strategies, and approaches that suit them.

We dedicate 100% of our clinical time to assisting individuals with acquired brain injuries.
We review the latest evidence and guidelines to establish the best assessment and treatment practices recommended by research and clinical findings.

We treat all individuals with the respect and dignity they deserve and we strive to assist them in advocating for their rights and choices to whatever extent they are able.

We recognize that collaboration is the key to addressing the multiple needs that occur post-injury.
In our view, collaboration involves celebrating the strengths and contributions of each member on the team, clarifying and streamlining services, brainstorming creative solutions, and collectively cheering on the individual through the challenges inherent in post-injury rehabilitation.
In the spirit of collaboration, we create positive working relationships with healthcare professionals across Ontario.

We respect that the individual’s rehabilitation funds must be used wisely. To that end, we ensure that all practices are fair, equitable, and responsible.
We seek to streamline services and work with other professionals to delineate tasks in a manner that reduces duplication, overlap, and confusion and increases clarity, collaboration, and cost effectiveness.
We weigh treatment recommendations judiciously, consider the most cost effective methods, and anticipate the long term use of resources, and optimal progression toward independence.
We communicate directly and proactively with the individuals, their families, their funding sources, and their legal representatives and we act without bias in all cases.
We are an independent practice that does not align with any other company, service provider, or funding source, and strives to remain objective in all decisions.

Sheila MacDonald knows that therapy strategies and activities should be as close to real life as possible. To that end, she develops creative communication solutions in real life contexts. She recommends therapy tasks and procedures that fit with your real world demands and have practical application in your daily communications. She talks like a real person, has a sense of humour, and wants you to feel at home and at ease in therapy, while knowing that your goal is to move beyond therapy to the re-construction of a compelling life.
Imagine communication strategies that occur in the classroom, in the weekly staff meeting, in the board room, around the kitchen table, on the construction site, in the daycare, in the sales meeting, or on the factory floor.

We use a “coaching” approach that celebrates each participant’s individuality and gives them opportunities to choose their goals, strategies, communication contexts, and their own measures of success.

We advocate for greater understanding and improved services for individuals with cognitive-communication disorders.
We dedicate considerable time to advancing the knowledge base on cognitive-communication disorders through education, presentations, research, and development of clinical resource materials.