Moving to Succeed: Supporting Motor Difficulties

and Utilising New Technologies

2-3 September 2010

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Conference Overview

Motor difficulties in school aged children can vary widely, ranging from handwriting difficulties and clumsiness to conditions such as dyspraxia/developmental coordination disorder, to complex disabilities like cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy. These difficulties can pose great challenges to children's daily activities, play, social interaction, academic achievements, emotions and frustration. Most students with motor impairments also present with other difficulties such as poor attention (ADHD) and executive functioning, language disorders and learning problems. Schools must consider opportunities for success, practical modifications and physical safety for such students.
In addition, new technologies are rapidly becoming available to educators, therapists and families to assist these students. They offer innovative opportunities for students to learn and to perform and, particularly, to meet individualised support needs.

This conference will discuss evidence-based approaches to the concepts,  recognition, assessment and support strategies for motor disorders and various overlapping impairments. In addition, the utilisation of existing technology to support students with motor and associated difficulties will be presented. Discussions will provide practical strategies, case illustrations and highlight current research. This conference will be of great interest to educators, therapists, especially occupational therapists and physiotherapists, psychologists, GPs and paediatricians.

Conference Abstracts - a selection of presenters abstracts are available and can be viewed here please click here

(please note that not all presenters abstracts are available but will updated and posted here, as they become available)

This year's CHERI conference will be held on the 2-3 September 2010, at Westmead Hospital, Education Block.

Keynote Speakers include international and national experts;

Professor Amanda Kirby and Professor Jan Piek.

Professor Amanda Kirby

Professor of Developmental Disorders in Education and Medical Director of the Dyscovery Centre University of Wales, Newport.

Professor Kirby is a leading expert in motor difficulties (dyspraxia) and related conditions with several best-selling books on the subject. Professor Kirby founded and has been running the Dyscovery Centre since 1997, an interdisciplinary centre providing assessment and intervention for children and adults with a range of developmental disorders including dyspraxia, ADHD, dyslexia, specific language impairment, Autism Spectrum Disorders and behavioural issues. She is involved in research and has lectured across the world at international seminars and spoken to many teachers, health professionals and parents.

She is also the parent of an adult with developmental disorders, so has personal as well as professional experience of living with the challenges through all the stages. She is currently the patron of the Dyspraxia Association in New Zealand, Advisor to the Dyspraxia Association in Ireland, Medical Advisor to the Dyspraxia Foundation in the UK and advisor to DANDA (the adult developmental disorders group). She is on the learning disabilities group workforce for the Royal College of General Practitioners and is on the Welsh Assembly Special Education Advisory Board and is at present undertaking a benchmarking study of Dyslexia provision in Wales.

She has written extensively in the field of Developmental Disorders, including four books on Dyspraxia (DCD). Also range of skills packs for schools and home such as on handwriting, dyscalculia, organisational skills for home and for school, and Mapping SEN (a CDROM programme), and an award winning Living with Dyspraxia Training Video which was a BBC programme.

Professor Jan Piek

Professor of Developmental Psychology, School of Psychology and Speech Pathology at Curtin University, Perth.

Jan Piek is Professor of Developmental Psychology in the School of Psychology and Speech Pathology at Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia. She recently took on the role as Director of Graduate Studies for the Faculty of Health Sciences. Over the last 15 years, Professor Piek has researched extensively in the area of infant motor development, and has also examined developmental disorders such as Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in childhood and adolescence, publishing extensively in these areas.

In particular, she has investigated the underlying processes that are responsible for poor motor coordination in infants and children who are born preterm and in children with DCD and ADHD, and has examined neurocognitive and psychosocial factors that are associated with these disorders. Her research has highlighted the relevance of poor motor ability in other developmental disorders such as ADHD and Autism. In 2006, she published a book titled Infant Motor Development (Human Kinetics, Champaign, Illinois). Professor Piek is Section Editor for the international journal, Human Movement Science and is on the Working Party for the American Psychiatric Association’s review of DCD for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual version five.

Please contact the CHERI office on 02 9845 0418 or email info@cheri.com.au to receive further information about conferences or register your interest in other topics by clicking here.

Invitation to Sponsor our Conference

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