Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Down Syndrome Conference

Last weekend Karen & I attended the "2008 Regional Conference on Down Syndrome and other Disabilities" in Atlanta. Many thanks to the Down Syndrome Association of Atlanta for planning & hosting this event. Thanks also to grandparents and my sister, Karen, for taking care of our 3 boys to make it possible for us to go.

We had a great time and got to sit in on a lot of interesting and educational presentations & workshops.

The first day there were several presentations by Dr. Brian G Skotko, co-author of Common Threads.
Dr. Skotko has a sister with Down Syndrome. He is a resident physician at Children's Hospital Boston and Boston Medical Center. He has dedicated his professional energies toward children with cognitive and development disabilities.
Coincidentally, about a week before this conference we received some survey forms in the mail from Dr. Skotko asking us to participate in a research study he is conducting on Down Syndrome families. He is especially interested in how it affects other siblings in the family. Randall even got to fill out his own survey.

“What the Other Children Are Thinking”
is a research paper Dr. Skotko co-wrote that appeared in the American Journal of Medical Genetics.

In the coming days I will try to do some more posts telling of some of the other people we got to meet.

1 comment:

Nancy C said...

Karen,
I am so glad you met Dr. Skotko, isn't he a jewel. I met him at a conference in Arizona last Feb. I have his book and I am so glad he is an advocate for DS. I also enjoyed the story of the married couple, I didn't know about them.
So glad you were able to attend the conference.