When: Wednesday 11^th June

Time: 7-8pm

Online via Zoom

Kirsteen Grieve is a Specialist Independent Paediatric Physiotherapist with extensive experience in developmental paediatrics. After 14 years working within both the NHS as well as the third sector both in the UK and New Zealand, Kirsteen founded her private practice – Movement Physiotherapy – in 2012.  She has continued to develop her clinical skills in line with new and advancing clinical techniques to provide modern and innovative approaches to managing the wide-ranging needs of the children she works with. Kirsteen runs sessions from her homely and welcoming space ‘The Bothy’ just outside Linlithgow and provides both regular and intensive physiotherapy sessions to children and their families from all over Scotland and beyond! The aim with each family is to push the boundaries to discover what is possible!

Kirsteen’s session will cover typical development of a child with Down’s Syndrome and give practical ideas and suggestions on how to address some of the common physical challenges that these children face. The session will be very interactive and will provide demonstrations of how to self-assess and evaluate your child at home, know when to seek additional help, and tips on how to progress gross motor skills. Questions are welcome in advance and during/after the session.

Bookings for this event have now closed.

When: Wednesday 20th August

Time: 7-8pm

Online via Zoom

Come and join Karen Philip from our Family Support Team and Katy Lironi, Development Lead and Makaton Tutor from our Achieving Better Communication (ABC) Team for a Q&A session – a chance to gain information and ask any questions you may have about your child’s early years development and communication from birth to up to 3 years old.

When: Wednesday 4^th June

Time: 7-8pm

Online via Zoom

Karen McGuigan is the founder of Maths for Life Limited who support children and young adults with additional support needs to engage with and enjoy learning maths. The programme also helps parents/carers and education professionals to have the tools and resources to support using the programme within the home or school/college setting.

At this session Karen will speak about how the Maths for Life Programme came about, how it works to support the complete age spectrum of students, from pre-school and onwards onto further education/college and how the programme incorporates technology to support maths learning. It is a differentiated and accessible programme aimed at supporting individuals who may have difficulties with the national curriculum structure and timescales and offers a different approach to learning essential maths skills.

Bookings for this event have now closed.

When: Friday 13^th June

Time: 12.30-1.30pm

Online via Zoom

Dr Tamlyn Watermeyer is a Cognitive Neuropsychologist — this means she is interested in how the brain supports memory and thinking abilities. Her work focuses on understanding how and why these abilities change over time, especially in people who are at higher risk of developing dementia, like those with Down’s syndrome. She currently holds an NIHR-Alzheimer’s Society Dementia fellowship and is based at Northumbria University at Newcastle and has an honorary fellowship with Edinburgh Dementia Prevention, University of Edinburgh. She will present a summary of her fellowship work aimed at improving access to brain health and dementia research care opportunities in the North of the UK by improving the tests to assess memory and thinking in all ages of people with Down’s syndrome.  

As they age, people with Down’s syndrome are at-risk for developing Alzheimer’s, a form of dementia. Despite this, they are often left out of research studies of dementia, in large part because our current tests simply don’t work well enough for this group. The RAD Study (Revolutionising Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment in Down’s syndrome) is about changing that by developing tests of the future. In this project, we’re working  with adults with Down’s syndrome (aged 18 years and older) and their caregivers to develop fairer, more accurate ways of detecting early memory and thinking changes linked to Alzheimer’s. We’re testing a new kinds of memory tasks, that are like games and that don’t rely on language or education (a big problem of existing tests), and which have already shown promise in detecting Alzheimer’s much earlier in other groups. Crucially, we’re not just testing what works — we’re asking what works for you? Participants are helping us shape and improve the study itself: what feels accessible, what doesn’t, and how we can make this research more inclusive and empowering for all ages of people with Down’s syndrome. The RAD Study isn’t just about improving science. It’s about shifting who gets seen, heard, and supported when it comes to brain health — and paving the way for future research and care that includes everyone from the very beginning of their brain health journey. 

Bookings for this event have now closed. Please email enquiries to ABC@dsscotland.org.uk.

We are delighted that we can introduce some more in-person ABC Songs, Stories and Signs sessions for children aged 6-12 years (up to 12^th birthday or older depending on communication stage).

Come along to our ABC Songs, Stories and Signs face-to-face event on Sunday 1^st June at 11.00am in Seafield, West Lothian (session ends at 12noon).

Sessions take place at Cill Mhanach Wellness Studio, Redhouse Road, Seafield, West Lothian, EH47 7AL and will be hosted by June Flynn, ABC Tutor, from our Achieving Better Communication (ABC) team.

To attend this event please complete the form below. We will then email a reminder of the details of the event (usually a few days before from abc@dsscotland.org.uk).

Event information:

There is no additional cost for those who subscribe to our ABC programme as it includes monthly face-to-face sessions throughout the year. A £5.00 charge (per session) applies to families who aren’t signed up to the ABC Programme. 

The sessions will take place once per month (usually last Sunday of the month) and will feature lots of familiar aspects of our ABC online sessions – songs, Makaton signs, stories and communication activities. Face-face sessions also provide a great opportunity for meeting other parents.

Face-to-face ABC Songs, Stories and Signs sessions will be in addition to weekly online ABC or ABC Anytime sessions, which will continue weekly throughout term time.

Each event can accommodate a maximum of 8 children plus a parent/carer and will be on a first come first served basis. Please book only one ticket per family.

Each event needs to be booked on an individual basis, but more than one session can be booked by each family.

Bookings for this event have now closed. Please email enquiries to ABC@dsscotland.org.uk.

Please come along to our in-person ABC Next Steps session for adults aged 18 years and over on Sunday 1st June at 12.30pm in Seafield, West Lothian (session ends at 13.45pm).

Sessions take place at Cill Mhanach Wellness Studio, Redhouse Road, Seafield, West Lothian, EH47 7AL and will be hosted by June Flynn, ABC Tutor, from our Achieving Better Communication (ABC) team.

ABC Next Steps provides a literacy and communication session for adults. You can expect lots of the same activities included in our online sessions – introductions, getting to know you, topic-based conversations and follow up literacy activities and games. 

Face-face sessions also provide a great opportunity for adults to meet and continue their communication journey.

To attend this event please complete the form below. We will then email a reminder of the details of the event (usually a few days before from abc@dsscotland.org.uk).

Event information:

There is no additional cost for those who subscribe to our ABC programme as it includes monthly face-to-face sessions throughout the year. A £5.00 charge (per session) applies to families who aren’t signed up to the ABC Programme. 

Face-to-face ABC Next Steps sessions will be in addition to weekly online ABC or ABC Anytime sessions, which will continue weekly throughout term time.

Each event can accommodate a maximum of 12 adults plus a parent/carer and will be on a first come first served basis. Please book only one ticket per family.

Each event needs to be booked on an individual basis, but more than one session can be booked by each family.

Bookings for this event have now closed as this session is fully booked. Please email enquiries to ABC@dsscotland.org.uk.

When: Thursday 5th June

Time: 7-9pm

Online via Zoom

The workshop is FREE for Down’s Syndrome Scotland family members. This session is for parents, carers, and family members to learn the basics of how to support the communication of their child with Down’s syndrome. The workshop offers a brief background to Makaton and why it is useful for people with Down’s syndrome. The practical part of the workshop introduces 20-30 key signs and explores how to use signs in sentences. There will be time for questions and answers at the end.