CPL Annual Report 2011/12 - Cerebral Palsy League

The Cerebral Palsy League also has a National
Health and Medical Research Council
accredited Research Ethics Committee, which
reviews all research proposals and supports
other community-based organisations in the
formal ethics consideration of their research
activities.
2012 has reconfirmed the Cerebral Palsy
League’s international recognition as an
expert in providing services for people with
cerebral palsy. The 6 th Biennial Conference
of the Australasian Academy for Cerebral
Palsy and Developmental Medicine was
held in Brisbane from 30 May 2012 to 2
June 2012. The Cerebral Palsy League was
well represented with the highest collective
number of keynote, breakfast, free paper and
poster presentations of any organisation.
At the conclusion of the conference, we
scored five of the top ten presentations
ranked by those attending the conference.
Dr. Megan Auld, a Research Fellow with
the Cerebral Palsy League, was recognised
as delivering the best presentation at the
conference and received an award for the
best doctoral research in developmental
medicine in the Asia-Pacific region for
her ground-breaking research, “Tactile
performance of children with Unilateral
Cerebral Palsy”. Information on this and the
outcomes of other research, such as a Family
Resilience Study, the experiences of adults
and adolescents with cerebral palsy in their
participation at home, at work, in education
and in the general community and a Caring
for Carers study, is available on the Cerebral
Palsy League’s website.
The Conference’s Parents Symposium,
sponsored by the Cerebral Palsy League,
was a hailed as a great success by families
and lots of fun for children. Activities were
provided for more than 25 children while
their families participated in an interactive
symposium which addressed therapy
support, assistive technologies and how to
access financial support.
The Queensland Cerebral Palsy Register
team, located at the Cerebral Palsy League
in New Farm, is preparing to present at
least five and perhaps up to ten consecutive
birth years of data in its second report due
for release in late 2012. This achievement is
well in advance of expectations when the
Register was established only six years ago
and compares very favourably with more
mature registers operating in other Australian
jurisdictions.
Pictures from left to right:
40% of children with Hemiplegia cannot feel touch stimuli; When they put their
hand in a lucky dip box, no matter what it contains, it will feel empty
37% of children can feel touch but they cannot tell where, when or what they
touched; These children can feel there is something in the box, but they can’t tell
what it is
23% of children feel and perceive touch correctly; These children know exactly what
they feel inside the box so find the prize
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