On behalf of IASSID and the conference’s organizing committee, EASPD would like to invite you to the 3rd IASSID-Europe Conference, which will be held in Rome from the 20th to the 23rd of October, 2010.

The IASSID-EUROPE Conference is dedicated to children and adults with intellectual disabilities and their families. Their lives are the concrete reality that our research attempts to illuminate and distil. The breadth of aetiological, developmental, environmental and cultural factors, together with the diversity of clinical considerations involved, means that our research has to take a multidisciplinary approach and a "lifespan" perspective. People with intellectual disabilities differ and change over time, and how individuals grow emotionally and behaviourally needs to be understood.

The aim is to provide the right supports and environmental "contexts" that promote the development of the individual and his or her family from infancy to childhood, to adolescence, to young adulthood, to maturity and to old age. Such a broad aim necessitates multi-disciplinary understanding. The centrality of the individual within the goal of promoting quality of life warrants a family and person-centered approach. The individual is part of society and the approach taken must also draw upon the involvement of people’s communities at all ages and stages of their lives.