Prof. Juliet Goldbart, UK

Juliet Goldbart is Professor of Developmental Disabilities in the Psychology Department, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. Juliet’s research addresses the communication challenges experienced by children and adults with profound intellectual disabilities (ID) or complex physical disabilities. She has worked on establishing the evidence base for communication interventions for children and adults with profound ID and took part in redeveloping Routes for Learning; a free online assessment of cognition and communication for children with profound ID (https://hwb.gov.wales/curriculum-for-wales/routes-for-learning). She worked on the AAC project: identifying appropriate symbolic communication aids for children who are non-speaking (free resources at https://iasc.mmu.ac.uk/). Juliet has a particular interest in appropriate service delivery for families with a child or adult with complex needs, whether in relatively advantaged contexts or in lower and middle-income countries. She is passionate about finding ways of supporting communication and interaction with people with profound disabilities, and has run workshops on this topic in many parts of the world.