Foreword

Welcome to the 3rd UK Paediatric Neuropsychology Symposium, which we hope will be an exciting and educational meeting. This year’s meeting will focus on early brain-behaviour relationships and prognostic indicators relevant to clinical practice. Experimental, clinical and epidemiological techniques designed to assess the development of cognitive, emotional and social behaviour with associated brain function will be described and discussed. The speaker sessions will highlight the importance of studying the period of infancy, a time of rapid growth when brain plasticity is at a maximum, yet also reflect on the challenges involved in assessing brain and cognitive-behavioural function in the very young. A host of leading international speakers have been invited and we are very pleased to have accepted over sixty poster presentations. The UK symposia are part of the Clinical Paediatric Neuropsychology Training Programme at the UCL Institute of Child Health. Since its inception in 2007 we have opened up parts of the programme as short courses for external delegates and each year they have grown in popularity so that the symposia now attract a large international audience from all continents across the globe. This year we aim to extend access even further by launching the on-line Baby Brains Around the World project. All lectures will be filmed and broadcast live to the secure conference website. Lectures will remain as recorded files available for viewing until 4th June 2012 along with posters, lecture hand-outs, discussion forums and the enclosed proceedings. We hope that adding this new dimension to the symposia will widen communication and networking opportunities as far as possible for academics and practitioners interested in early human cognition and its developmental pathways. We look forward to meeting you in person or on-line and wish you a most enjoyable symposium.