Integrating Services
3RD NATIONAL DYSPRAXIA CONFERENCE
"One of our aims in educating all our children is to optimise their potential for achievement in life. Although children with Developmental Dyspraxia may have many different issues that affect this process, it is important to see and treat the whole child in an integrated manner. Following the success of our two previous conferences in 1997 and 2001, awareness of Dyspraxia and its impact has slowly risen. Now it is timely to address the issues around integrating services and filling the educational and health needs of these children."
We have the conference proceedings available for sale now from the Centre, cost $45.00 plus postage.
More information about the 2004 conference will be posted here at a later date.
'Planning to Learn - and learning to Plan', a conference for all who are involved in the education of children with Developmental Dyspraxia.
This conference was held on October 5/6/7th., 2001, in Christchurch at the Hotel Grand Chancellor.
In writing a bit about conference, the first thing I want to say is a huge thankyou to all the hard working conference committee members. We started holding planning meetings about 18 months beforehand, so the commitment of these people was amazing. I especially want to thank Averil Robertson for her help and support as co-convenor, Heather McGuigan (secretary), Gayle Anderson, Jan Murphy, Robyn Ritchie, Barbara Chapman and of course Marg Craig and Debbie Powell of the Conference Team, without whose help things would have been very much more difficult.
The conference was opened most eloquently by Her Excellency, Dame Sylvia Cartwright, Governor General of New Zealand, and singing of the National Anthem led by Felicity Stieller, who also sang for us. Felicity is only 16, and has Developmental Dyspraxia, but she sings beautifully, is in the chorus of Canterbury Opera, and is one of our junior champions at golf! (She was invited to take part in the master-class when Tiger Woods recently played in N.Z.)
The costs of running large conferences like this are enormous, (and indeed were considerably greater than at our first conference in 1997), and sponsorship and donations/funding very difficult indeed to find. We were pleased that we were able to keep registration fees as low as they were, and that was only with the financial support and generosity of the Ministry of Education, Christchurch Community Trust, the Waikato Salvation Army, the New Zealand Community Trust, and the Neurological Foundation. We are aware that even with all this help, the cost was prohibitive for some of you.
The conference was aimed at the educators of children with Dyspraxia - parents, teachers, therapists - and delegates came from all over New Zealand, as well as from Australia, Hong Kong, and even Hungary. The breakdown of conference delegates showed that they consisted of a high percentage of parents, the remainder being largely teachers, remedial teachers, speech and occupational therapists, and other professionals. Feedback from the evaluation sheets showed that most were intending to take new skills and understanding into their classrooms and their homes ..... which is what it was all about, of course.
We were sorry, too, that the restrictions on numbers at the venue meant that so many people missed out. The ‘numbers game’ was completely unpredictable, and a source of amazement that the conference was so easily filled. Of course larger venues are reflected in larger costs.
Very special thanks to all our speakers, whose skill and understanding was so readily shared.
Our first keynote speaker was Professor Loretta Giorcelli, professor of learning difficulties at the University of Western Sydney, who lectures in many countries all over the world. Loretta's common-sense approach to dyspraxia gave us many useful hints from both the child's and the teacher's points of view.
Next came Dr. Caroline Bowen, a speech therapy lecturer from Sydney, with a close and detailed understanding of verbal dyspraxia.
Merrolee Penman
, senior lecturer in Occupational Therapy from the Otago Polytechnic, gave us a good overview of current professional thinking on Dyspraxia.And Margaret Underwood, an educational consultant from New Plymouth in New Zealand, spoke about catering for individual learning styles in the classroom.
Each afternoon delegates chose from 6 workshops for each of two workshop sessions, covering such topics as Specific Learning Difficulties, Visual processing and learning, common psychiatric disorders, creating playful therapeutic environments, emotional and social consequences, identification and assessment in preschoolers, phonological awareness, getting to grips with dyspraxia, as well as deeper insights into the keynote addresses.
Some of the most valuable parts of conference were the small special meetings - the Adults’ Meeting, Parents’ meeting, Youth meeting, and the meeting of Regional Contact people. These have resulted in the setting up of Internet chat sites for Adults, and for Parents (see below for details) and it is hoped that North Island and South Island Contact people will be able to meet next year, the suggestion being to have full conferences every two years, with Regional meetings on the intervening years. We will see what develops!
* Regional contact people met and decided to get together if possible next year, and to have conferences every two years, money and energy levels permitting!
* A group of adult people with dyspraxia met
together ......... a chat group has now been set up on email
To enrol in these groups you simply send an e-mail to
either
ParentsOfDyspraxia-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
and / or
Judy Davies, co-convenor.