Knowledge, Skills, Research and Interest in Child Development and Developmental Disorders in Children

It is with great pleasure I pen this message as the president of the Sri Lanka Association for Child Development for 2024 and 2025. I am deeply honoured by the trust, faith, and confidence the membership has bestowed upon me and I accept this role with utmost humility. I wish to salute the past presidents and the councils for the guidance and support given to me during the last few years. I should respectfully acknowledge the dedicated work done by the past councils and the membership to uplift the SLACD to its present level, always in silence without expecting any glory in return.

Sri Lanka is facing one of its worst economic crises in recent decades. The theme of the SLACD 2024/25 is “Preventing the preventable for a better nation” will certainly address the early detection of differently abled children in Sri Lanka as well as empowering the membership who are the stakeholders in the management of these children by updating knowledge and skills. We hope that our interventions will help to showcase the hidden talents of these children and to streamline the process for them to become more productive young adults during this crucial period of an economic downturn in our country.

In concurrence with the theme, we have planned projects to address the areas of early detection and intervention of cerebral palsy, Autism Spectrum Disorders and Down syndrome. The early detection and intervention will prevent complications and social problems related to schooling and working with the people in the community. Our main target during the next two years would be to achieve these goals through a solid plan with the unyielding dedication and support of the members of the council and the membership.

SLACD is a multi–disciplinary professional organization and is a unique forum working in the field of child development and disability in Sri Lanka. It works in collaboration with the local and international collaborators. The Ministry of Health, education and social services and the Family Health Bureau of Sri Lanka are the main government sector collaborators and the CDB is the main cooperate sector collaborator. I would like to thank the CDB for its generous contributions to the endevours that the SLACD initiated for the betterment of the differently abled children in Sri Lanka. We also collaborate with our international partner the IAACD in par with their activities with mutual understanding.

I invite all members of the SLACD to join hands with my council and myself to make these endeavours truly successful. Let’s embark on this challenging two years ahead together, knowing we might have to face unexpected obstacles but with the true spirit of unity and strength to overcome them and to achieve the best for the membership and for the differently abled children in our country.

Sri Lanka association for child development (SLACD) was founded in 2012 as a multi –disciplinary professional organization, as a unique forum working in the field of child development and disability in Sri Lanka.

Though we are very limited in our outreach and community activities due to COVID pandemic, we have been able to conduct a series of webinars on a range of topics dedicated to educate the professionals as well as parents and public. We managed to celebrate a vibrant downs syndrome day in March 2021 with a limited crowd and share with a wider audience virtually.

We have launched a new pragramme to translate our educational webinars to Tamil for the benefit of our own Tamil speaking brotherhood, which will be a strong bridge to fill a wide gap of learning material in Tamil.

We were able to connect with children of the nation, differently abled and otherwise alike in our children’s day programme 2021 where kids sent their amazing talents virtually for us to share and appreciate. This wonderful programme connected us with so many kids and professionals and we got a response we never expected, kids all over the country sending a stunning 600 odd videos over a matter of 2 weeks which we shared in streamyard over 2 months.

SLACD is in collaboration with the co-operate sector for the benefit of children. Hand in hand with CDB we are planning to build intervention centers for disabled children in Badulla and Kandy.

Thus SLACD is exploring and finding new strengths in the trying conditions that prevail. We believe that staying together we can rise to unthinkable heights through multisector and multidisciplinary collaboration, making a better world for our kids.