CLAPAI’s most anticipated and fun day of the year is back again for 2016 and will be held from 10am on Saturday 18 June at the Tallaght Leisure Centre!
We are planning a fun, active day for the kids and a social atmosphere for parents to meet with plenty of surprises throughout the day!
You’ll find a booking form attached here which you can send back to us. Family Activity Day 2016 Booking Form & News V1.3
Watch this space for further details of the day.
Parent Led Articulation Therapy (PLAT) is an exciting new Speech & Language Therapy project which aims to find out if empowering parents by training them helps their child overcome their speech problems related to cleft palate.
This two centre study is being run by Dr. Triona Sweeney, Trinity College Dublin and Dr. Debbie Sell, Great Ormond Street Hospital. Parents are encouraged to participate in this study as this will help us find out whether this novel new approach to speech therapy for children http://www.ciprobuyonline.org with cleft palate related speech problems is effective. Four parents who have already attended the training course were extremely positive about the programme. Following the home programme they said that “you feel like you are instrumental – taking some power yourself”, and how they realised that children “need a little bit every day, a weekly appointment is not enough”.
If you want further information about the project contact your cleft unit or Triona by phone at 085 1754614 or email platslt@icloud.com.
CLAPAI’s next guest speaker evening will host Henrietta Spalding, Head Of Advocacy, Changing Faces for a discussion on facial difference and how to cope with these.
The event is free admission and will be held in the Centre for Development and Learning, St James’ Hospital at 8pm on 3rd February. Doors will open at 7.30pm and please email info@cleft.ie to register interest.
We are appealing to families to raise or donate €100 to the Cleft Lip & Palate Association of Ireland (CLAPAI) so that together in 2015 we can fund the next phase of important Speech Therapy Research.
Why Speech Therapy? On average, treat 140 babies per year are born in Ireland with a cleft. Over half will have speech problems because they are unable to make sounds in the normal way. Speech therapy is a proven method of enabling children to make the sounds they find difficult. Continue reading
Right: Group Photo taken in Dublin Zoo. Click image to view large size (2019px x 1051px, 790kb).
Thank you to all who came, we expect that there were many tired children on Saturday night! And even more tired adults! And thank you too to the Zoo staff and to the army for hosting and feeding us in McKee Barracks. Â This is the third year that the army have been involved with out Family Day, and they have been great!
Many of our readers will know Ena Lynn from her work with the Health Research Board. For those of you that don’t, Ena has had the extraordinary job of collecting clinical data and samples from cleft affected families all over Ireland. When she started three years ago, there were 112 samples (collected with the help of the Association). Thankfully at the time there were enough samples to help researchers secure a fund for further work.
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Congratulations to Ronan Ely who not only completed the Dublin City Marathon in 4 hours 30 mins, sale he raised €2, prostate 700 for the Association. Ronan, who is studying Business Studies in Cork Institute Technology, travelled to our recent Information Evening to present the Association with a cheque for €2,400.
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We recently had a query from one of our parents about Root Canal Treatment. On a routine visit to the Orthodontist in St. James’s Hospital our parent was advised that root canal treatment might be needed for daughter Christina. The question raised was where could root canal treatment be received and would there be a cost.
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On September 14th 2004 the first international conference of European Cleft Lip & Palate support groups took place. CLAPA Uk hosted the event, nurse which was held in London. It was a tremendous success thanks to all the speakers and delegates who made it such an interesting day. CLAPAI chairman Eddie Byrne made a presentation outlining how cleft is treated in Ireland and how the Association operates here. Valuable contacts have been made particularly with Associations that are similar in size. It is planned to hold another conference next year.
As fundraising efforts have shown, there is a gap in public awareness of cleft lip & palate. In recent times however there has been more national publicity, which is to be welcomed. In July, Laura was on TV3 with Mr. Earley. The topic under discussion was the real value of plastic surgery versus cosmetic surgery. Both participants came across well. The result was the profile of cleft was raised at a national level.
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