keynote presenters panel

Edmen has been with the DAS since 2010. He served as an Educational Therapist, Programme Manager as well an Assistant Director before assuming the post of Director of Specialised Educational Services (SES) on the 1st of January 2019. As Director of SES, Edmen oversees a range of programmes including the Preschool, Speech and Language Therapy, Math, Chinese, Prep 2 PSLE and Speech and Drama Arts programmes. He has also pioneered the development of Short Term Programmes and oversees student workshops that DAS conducts.

Edmen graduated from the University of Western Australia, Perth with a degree in Psychology prior to joining the DAS. He has since completed his Post-Graduate Certificate in Specific Learning Differences with London Metropolitan University and his Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics with the National Institute of Education Singapore where he won the book prize for being the top student in his cohort. Edmen is currently pursuing his PhD with an interest in the topic of reading motivation for struggling readers. He has presented in conferences and published papers on exam skills, curriculum development, reading comprehension and language testing.

Edmen strongly believes in unlocking the potential of every dyslexic learner and aims to empower educators and parents with sufficient knowledge and strategies to support struggling learners.

ABOUT JUNE:

Dr June Siew is a thought leader in the field of special educational needs (SEN), focusing on dyslexia. She holds a grounded perspective of SEN, developed through her extensive experiences with students and their community of support. She is a pioneer in advocating inclusive practices in schools and has been training allied educators since they were first introduced to the mainstream school system in 2005. She passionately believes that the family and community are key to a child’s success and works closely with them to help students with SEN thrive.

June holds a Doctor in Education from the National Institute of Education (Singapore) and Institute of Education, University College London. She is a Fellow with the Register of Educational Therapists (Asia) and a qualified trainer with a WSQ Advanced Certificate in Training and Assessment (ACTA).

ABOUT HELEN:

Creator of ‘The Evolution of Complementary Cognition’ – a new scientific theory that explains how our species adapt and evolve.
Project Lead, Complementary Cognition, Business & Entrepreneurship, University of Strathclyde.
Affiliated Scholar, McDonald Institute University of Cambridge.

Helen is currently a Research Associate and Project Lead on Complementary Cognition, Entrepreneurship & Societal Adaptation at the University of Strathclyde. She works in collaboration with Professor Nigel Lockett and Professor Eleanor Shaw. Helen did her Bachelor and Masters degrees at the UCL and won further scholarship funding to do her doctorate at the University of Cambridge where her PhD research investigated the emergence of social complexity in humans. For her subsequent post-doctoral work she researched dyslexia to try and understand what this form of cognition was and why it existed. From this, she developed a new theory of human cognitive evolution which draws on economic and complex systems theory and is supported by a range of evidence from cognitive psychology, neuroscience, evolution, paleo-environmental evidence and archaeology.

Read more here: complementarycognition.co.uk

ABOUT KENNETH:

Dr Kenneth Poon is an Associate Professor at the Psychology, Child, and Human Development Academic Group at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. He also serves as Associate Dean (Education Research) at the Office of Education Research, and as Centre Co-Director at the Centre for Research in Child Development. Kenneth obtained a PhD specializing in early childhood intervention and in autism spectrum disorders. Bringing his training as a psychologist and early childhood special educator, Kenneth is currently Principal Investigator of Tran-SEN, a study of about 700 children with special educational needs in Singapore primary and special schools.

ABOUT CHIEW LIM:

Lee Chiew Lim is Research Associate at the Centre for Research in Child Development at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. He is an educational psychologist and previously worked as a head of department at a secondary school.

ABOUT SHERILYN:

Sherilyn Goh is Research Assistant at the Centre for Research in Child Development at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. She previously worked as an associate psychologist in a special school serving students with intellectual disabilities.