CHILD-professors Mats Granlund together with professor Eva Björck-Åkesson, were recently invited to Taiwan. The Taiwan visit is a continuation of a collaboration that started some years ago because of the work CHILD has done on the development and evaluation of ICF-CY.

Educating and Collaborating in Taiwan

"This is my third visit to Taiwan", says CHILD-professor Mats Granlund.
"In Taiwan they have changed the system for how to decide what children are eligible for early intervention. The new conceptual basis for the legislation is ICF-CY."

CHILD-professors Mats Granlund together with Professor Eva Björck-Åkesson, was invited to Taiwan since they both have long experience of family centred early intervention and also of working with WHO's health classification system ICF-CY (International Classification of functioning, disability and health – child and youth version). The Taiwan visit is a continuation of a collaboration that started some years ago because of the work CHILD has done on the development and evaluation of ICF-CY.

"We have been working with informing professionals in Early Intervention about ICF-CY and how it can be implemented in early intervention services. This year we had a two day workshop for professionals on how to integrate ICF-CY in family centred early intervention services and a two day workshops to which both professionals and parents were invited about the same topic", Mats Granlund continues.

These activities have been financed by an early intervention association, a so called NGO (Non Governmental Organization), and by the Taiwanese Research Council.

CHILD encourages research on participation

"The Swedish-Taiwanese collaboration will lead to that we in CHILD can consolidate our internationally acknowledged position concerning research on participation for children in need of special support", Mats Granlund explains.

So far the Swedish-Taiwanese collaboration has lead to three articles i refereed journals and some more articles soon coming up.

"This collaboration has also lead to research collaboration around how to conceptualize and measure participation as well as research on factors influencing participation in everyday activities of children with disabilities”.