Overview

Discover how emotional development can transform assessment, treatment, and support for people with intellectual disability. This interactive workshop offers practical tools (SEED/SED-S), clinical vignettes, and evidence-based strategies that immediately translate into better outcomes, fewer psychotropics, and more person-centred care. Join to sharpen your clinical thinking and energise your team’s everyday practice

Learning Goals

Participants will:

• Understand the concept of emotional development and its relevance for assessment and treatment in people with intellectual disability.
• Learn to use emotional developmental level (SEED/SED-S) to differentiate developmentally typical behavior from psychopathological symptoms and challenging behavior.
• Identify developmentally appropriate, “emotionally logical” interventions (e.g., attachment-based, body-oriented, or mentalization-based) tailored to emotional reference age.
• Recognize how integrating the emotional development approach into routine practice can reduce overmedication and restrictive measures while improving mental health, quality of life, and participation.

Summary

This workshop introduces the emotional development approach as a clinical framework for understanding behavior, mental health, and treatment needs in people with intellectual or developmental disability (IDD). Participants will learn how assessing emotional developmental level using the Scale of Emotional Development (SEED/SED-S) clarifies the distinction between developmentally typical behaviors and psychopathological symptoms, especially in individuals with limited verbal communication. Empirical findings on the association between low emotional development and behaviors that challence, the developmental prerequisites of specific psychiatric disorders, and the impact of development-based interventions on psychotropic prescribing and behavioral outcomes will be presented. Using clinical vignettes, the workshop will demonstrate how “developmentally logical” support and therapy (e.g., attachment-based, body-oriented, or mentalization-based interventions) can be tailored to emotional reference age and implemented through brief team training, thereby improving quality of life, mental health, and social participation while reducing overmedication and restrictive practices.

Overview

This workshop introduces Multi-Element Behavior Support (MEBS), an evidence-based, comprehensive, constructional, and compassionate framework that challenges the fallacy that behavioral escalation necessitates restrictive practices. Participants will gain practical tools for responding to high-risk behavior using intentional, trauma-informed strategies that lower episodic severity and enhance quality of life, by helping people return as quickly as possible to the meaningful activities and relationships that matter most to them. Case examples span the lifespan and diverse settings and international contexts.

Learning Goals

Participants will be able to:

• Describe the core elements of Multi-Element Behavior Support (MEBS).
• Analyze behavioral escalation scenarios to distinguish resolution-focused responses from restrictive, escalation-driven practices.
• Apply trauma-informed, non-aversive MEBS strategies to high-risk situations to reduce episodic severity and support rapid return to meaningful activities.
• Evaluate behavior support plans for coherence, dignity, and quality-of-life outcomes across diverse service contexts.

Summary

This half-day workshop introduces Multi-Element Behavior Support (MEBS), an evidence-based, comprehensive, constructional, and compassionate framework for supporting individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities who experience complex or high-risk behavioral challenges. MEBS is grounded in applied behavior analysis while explicitly prioritizing dignity, safety, and quality-of-life outcomes. A central focus of the workshop is challenging the alignment fallacy, the persistent assumption that behavioral escalation necessitates increasingly restrictive practices. Participants will examine how this assumption can inadvertently intensify episodic severity and undermine social validity. Through guided instruction and applied case examples, participants will gain practical tools for responding to escalation using intentional, trauma-informed, and non-aversive strategies designed to resolve episodes efficiently and safely. Emphasis is placed on helping individuals return as quickly as possible to the meaningful activities, relationships, and roles that enrich their lives. Case examples will span the lifespan and reflect diverse service settings and international practice contexts.

Overview

Writing manuscripts is fundamental to membership of the community of scholars. This interactive workshop will assist early career researchers (and those who have tips to share) to publish their research. Led by experienced journal editors and authors, this workshop will offer participants strategies and time for questions and discussion. Bring along a draft, if you have one in development.
There are hundreds of highly ranked international journals that publish scholarly articles and make a significant and original contribution to theory, practice, and research for the field of IDD. If you have ever wondered about what processes are used to select and publish articles, or if you would like to find out how you can increase your chances of being a published author, then this is the workshop for you!

Learning Goals

Participants will:

• Understand the reviewing and editorial decision processes
• Develop their strategies for preparing manuscripts for submission to journals
• Learn how to write a high-quality review that assists authors and editors

Summary

1. Increasing your chances of publishing

• What are editors and reviewers, looking for?
• Understanding the reviewing and publishing process
• Explaining criteria and common reasons for rejection
• Strategies for choosing an appropriate journal for your manuscript

2. Preparing a manuscript for publication

• From a focused topic to designing a research question.
• Writing the title and selecting keywords
• Following the author guidelines
• Collaborating with other authors, especially those with intellectual or developmental disabilities
• Workshopping your draft manuscript (bring one along if you wish)

3. Ethical issues

• Author order and contributions
• Acknowledging ethical practice in writing about research in the field of ID
• Ethical use of Artificial Intelligence in research writing

Overview

Designing effective interventions for people with intellectual disabilities is not just about what we deliver, it’s about why it works, how it works, and how we make it last. This interactive workshop brings together two powerful approaches:

• Behaviour Change Science – to strengthen intervention core components and mechanisms
• Implementation Science – to ensure interventions are feasible, scalable, and sustainable in real-world services.

Participants will:

• Understand the COM-B model (Capability, Opportunity, Motivation – Behaviour)
• Use the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) to identify behavioural determinants
• Recognise and select appropriate Behaviour Change Techniques (BCTs)
• Identify implementation strategies and outcomes
• Understand implementation mechanisms such as staff buy-in and organisational readiness
• Consider sustainability from the outset by developing an Implementation Research Logic Model (IRLM)
• Strengthen the rigour and scalability of interventions in intellectual disability services.

Summary

Interventions in intellectual disability services often fail not because they lack evidence, but because:

• Behavioural mechanisms are poorly specified
• Core components are unclear
• Implementation strategies are not aligned to context
• Sustainability is not planned from the outset

This workshop will:

1. Introduce core Behaviour Change frameworks that help clarify mechanisms of action
2. Explore Implementation Science strategies and outcomes that support embedding interventions in real-world settings
3. Demonstrate how to integrate both using an Implementation Research Logic Model (IRLM)

The session is practical, applied, and focused on improving real-world impact in intellectual disability settings.

Overview

Would you like to reimagine the future with and for young people who have an intellectual disability? For too long these young people have remained on the margins of society with limited agency and autonomy. Inclusive post-secondary education programmes are designed to enable these young people to access meaningful opportunities to gain independence and attain employment in the first labour market. Interested? Come along and join us.

Participants will:

• examine the key factors involved in establishing inclusive post-secondary education programmes at universities,
• explore possibilities for further cooperation at the national and international levels and
• be engaged and encouraged to radically reimagine the future for young people with an intellectual disability.

Summary

Across the world, young people who have an intellectual disability are more likely to be unemployed and at greater risk of poverty. Enabling a transition to a meaningful adulthood for these young people is a complex and multi-factorial process. Increasingly, there is a growing awareness that these young people should have access to meaningful opportunities to gain independence through inclusive lifelong learning, thereby fulfilling their potential and attaining employment in the first labour force. Inclusive post-secondary education (IPSE) for students with intellectual disabilities has recently emerged as an innovative approach that enables these young people to take their place in society as independent and capable citizens.

This workshop based on extensive experience and expertise will examine the key factors involved in establishing inclusive post-secondary education programmes in universities and engage and encourage participants to radically reimagine the future for young people who have an intellectual disability.