Down Syndrome Ireland Cork branch presented at the UCC Down Syndrome Research Forum on Friday, 29th March – the theme of the day was ‘Exploring best practice in speech, language and communication for people with Down syndrome and their families.’
Cathal, (front left) spoke about his experience of Speech and Language Therapy, giving a PowerPoint presentation and taking questions from parents, researchers and therapists.Mide Kearney, (bottom right), head of the DSI SLT Team in Cork gave a presentation on Little Explorers Early Intervention Programme (LEEIP): Lessons from a research study.
This was the first event in Ireland to gather families, therapists, researchers and people with Down syndrome to talk about this topic – the event was extremely well attended, to the point where people were, unfortunately, being turned away. In response to the huge demand, UCC stepped up, live stream as much of the event as possible free online.
You can watch segments of the event here…
There were many high points from the day: meeting so many people who are interested and engaged trying to improve outcomes for people who have Down syndrome; hearing about evidence-based practice; seeing the number of people willing to engage with research.
It was clear that parents, researchers and therapists concluded that all the current knowledge base that has been gathered isn’t being delivered to more therapists.
