Early Childhood Intervention

We are honored to present our guest of honor Robin McWilliam, Ph.D.
from The University of Alabama

Robin McWilliam, Ph.D., is a professor of special education and department chair at The University of Alabama (USA), where he also directs the Evidence-based International Early Intervention Office (EIEIO). He is the director of The RAM Group, an international group of experts in the Routines-Based Model, which he developed. Previous jobs have included directing a research center for a nonprofit organization in Tennessee, Professor of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University, and Professor and Senior Scientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Out of Clinics and Into Children’s and Families’ Lives

How early intervention professionals work with children and families varies from country to country, but it’s moving in the same direction—to a more caregiver-mediated focus on functioning in naturally occurring routines. That means moving out of clinics and out of disability-only classrooms. This presentation will address a model for implementing modern early intervention (the Routines-Based Model), the kinds of research this new approach requires, and what implementation science tells us about changing our practices.

We are pleased to introduce Professor Marian Jongmans from Utrecht University

Marian Jongmans is Professor of Pedagogy, with a special interest in care for disabled children and their parents, at Utrecht University. In addition she holds a clinical post as a psychologist at the outpatient clinic of the department of Neonatology of the Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital in Utrecht.
In her research, she focuses on the interaction between development and parenting of children with (or at risk for) a cognitive and / or physical disability. How does children’s behaviour relate to the parenting strategies that parents use and, conversely, what is the influence of parental behaviour on their child’s development? Furthermore, she is interested in the dynamics and well being of families including a child with special needs, how parents support their child and the role of the immediate environment on the well being of the family.
Marian is a board member of the Dutch Association of Parents of (ex-) NICU Children and the Foundation Lotje & Co (for families with a care-intensive child).

She will present lecture on “Preterm born children: interaction between child development and parental rearing practices”