Paediatrics Multi-disciplinary Conference
For parents, teachers, and healthcare professionals — understanding what's really going on with our kids , and what to do next.
The child who is not embraced by the village, will burn it down to feel it’s warmth.
(African Proverb)
Every child learns and grows differently. But when a child struggles — with reading, speech, behaviour, or emotions — it's easy to feel stuck. You've probably tried a few things already. Maybe nothing's quite worked, and that's frustrating.
There isn't always one single fix. But there is always a next step — and it's usually simpler than you'd think.
This conference brings together specialists across audiology, optometry, ophthalmology, paediatrics, psychology, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and hearing therapy, biokinetics, chiropractic care, dietetics, and allergy medicine — all in one place, over two days.
What you'll walk away with:
How to spot the early signs, in plain language — no guesswork
Which specialist to see first, so you're not starting from scratch
Simple things you can check or try at home this week
30-minute talks from each specialist
Some specialists will be available for Q&A afterwards
Food vendors on-site (savouries, finger foods, coffee) and a play area for kids — bring the whole family
Venue:
Idyllic Falls, 1 Tembani Road,
Denholme AH, Gqeberha
(Please use the back entrance for parking)
Date & Time:
22 - 23 August, 2026
08:30–16:30
Cost:
R150 per person, per day — online registration before 20 August. R200 per person, per day after that, or at the door.
If any of these sound familiar, there's a specialist here who can help.
Is This Conference For You?
1. ADHD & Attention Difficulties
Struggles to focus, sit still, or finish tasks? It's not always "just a phase." Our paediatricians and psychologists help you understand what's really going on — and what to do next.
2. Autism & Sensory Processing
Overwhelmed by noise or touch? Avoids eye contact, or routine changes throw the whole day off? Our audiologists, OTs and psychologists help you recognise the signs and find strategies that actually help.
3. Learning Disabilities & Dyslexia
Bright, but reading and writing still feel like a fight? Learn how to spot the early signs, and which specialist helps your child read with confidence.
4. Speech & Language Delays
Hard to understand, or behind on talking for their age? Our speech and hearing therapists show you what's typical, what's not, and why early support matters.
5. Behavioural & Emotional Difficulties
Big meltdowns, or emotions that feel too big for the moment? Our psychologists help you understand what's driving it — and how to respond calmly.
6. Head Knocks, Concussion & Learning
A bump on the head can quietly change how a child learns and concentrates, long after it's healed. Learn the signs most people miss.
What Else You'll Find On the Day
It's not just talks — the whole family is covered.
Kids' Play Area
Bring the whole family. A play area is available for to entertain the kids.
Food Stalls
Savouries, finger foods, and coffee on-site — no need to plan meals around the day.
Experts In All Areas
Every specialist your child might need, from optometry to psychology, all under one roof, over two days.
Venue
Find Us on the Day
Idyllic Falls, 1 Tembani Road, Denholme AH, Gqeberha. Please use the back entrance for parking.
Program
Saturday, 22 August 2026
*Please note: this program is subject to change
8.45am
Abdurazaak Abdol
Paediatric Optometrist
Welcome Address
9:00am
Dr Lukie Barnard
General Practitioner
Growing together – a GP Approach to childhood allergies and development
9:30am
Dr Carrie Brand
Psychologist
Managing Childhood Anxiety
10:00am
Dr Olivia Read
Ophthalmologist
Overview of Paediatric Strabismus
10:30am
Jana Heath
Speech & Language Therapist
Mouth Matters – Mouth-breathing, Tongue-ties & Myofunctional Therapy
11:00am
Abdurazaak Abdol
Optometrist
Behavioural Optometry – Session 1
11:30am
Samantha Schonknecht
Physiotherapist
The Role of Physiotherapy in Hypermobility and Postural Control
12.00pm
Michaela van Wyk
Occupational Therapist
Sensory Regulation and Sensory Integration
12.30pm
Clare Hubbard
Occupational Therapist
Overview of the Services of the Eastern Cape Dept of Education for Visually Impaired Learners
1:00pm
Mammy Muthray
Optometrist
Vision Therapy
1.30pm
Clarette Alfond
Occupational Therapist
The Value of Special Needs Education Spaces for Young Children
2:00pm
Dr Zaahier Abrahams
Paediatrician
The Chronic Cough
2:30pm
Magdaleen Stadler
Occupational Therapist
Tomatis Listen Therapy
3:00pm
Danielle Smith
Biokineticist
The Kazi Bantu project -
Children and Teacher health in marginalized communities
Program
Sunday, 23 August 2026
*Please note: this program is subject to change
9:00am
Carissa Smuts
Psychologist
Disleksie
9:30am
Tina Siebert
Occupational Therapist
Sensory Integration Across the Lifespan
10:00am
Jeanine Roux
Psychometrist
The Role of Psychometric Assessment in Supporting Neurodiverse Learners
10:30am
Yolande van der Westhuizen
Neuro Occupational Therapist
When Learning isn't the Problem - Understanding the Hidden Neurological
Barriers to Learning
11:00am
Abdurazaak Abdol
Optometrist
Behavioural Optometry – Session 2
11:30am
Ayesha Kholvadia
Biokineticist
The Silent Risk: Childhood Hypertension, Movement Behaviours and the Role of the Multidisciplinary Team
12.00pm
Wilene Wiggill
Occupational Therapist
Hippotherapy
12.30pm
Phillipa Fabbri
Remedial Therapist
Happy, Inclusive Communities of Belonging
1:00pm
Zaheera Paruk
Optometrist
Low Vision
1:30pm
Cheryl Cupido
Remedial Therapist
Phonographix Remedial Reading Therapy
2:00pm
Mawaddah Brown
Speech Therapist
Speech Therapy Beyond The Office - How to Integrate Communication Goals into Everyday Routines
2:30pm
Rene Verson
Audiologist
Paediatric Vestibular Assessment & Newborn Hearing Screening
3:00pm
Dr Tarnia Raad
Chiropractor
Paediatric Chiropractic Assessment
THE SPECIALISTS
Meet the Team of Experts Behind the Conference
Aburazaak Abdol
Zakkie Abdol has treated patients in Port Elizabeth since 1995. He's also the host bringing this entire conference together.
He graduated from UKZN in 1993. Behavioural optometry changed the shape of his career — a discipline that looks at the whole person, not just the eyes.
He's helped hundreds of patients through amblyopia, autism, concussion, dyslexia, and more. He treats vision as one piece of a much bigger picture.
He works closely with audiologists, chiropractors, occupational therapists, psychologists, and speech therapists.
That's the exact team he's assembled for this conference. He believes the disciplines that treat children shouldn't work in isolation.
Carissa Smuts
Carisa Smuts has spent over a decade walking alongside families through some of life's hardest moments.
As a Counselling Psychologist at Walmer Wellness and in private practice since 2012, her work spans individual therapy, critical incident debriefing, and psycho-social wellbeing — backed by research training from the University of Cape Town.
Carisa brings a calm, grounded approach shaped by real experience across schools, private practice, and corporate wellness settings.
Jeanine Roux
Jeanine Roux has spent the past eight years turning research and assessment data into systems that actually work — the kind that reach the children and families who need them most.
She's founded and scaled two education organisations from the ground up, building multidisciplinary teams and programmes for vulnerable children across government, NGO, and private-sector lines.
A HPCSA-registered psychometrist with training in psychology and early childhood intervention, Jeanine has advised schools and international organisations on inclusive education.
Her work has been recognised with a Mandela Rhodes Scholarship and a place on the Mail & Guardian's Top 200 Young South Africans in education.
Mooveshni Dumalingam
Mooveshni Dumalingam is a Human Movement Science professional and programme administrator at Nelson Mandela University. She holds an Masters in Human Movement Science and a Bachelor of Health Sciences in Biokinetics.
Her work focuses on children's physical activity, fundamental movement skills, and health promotion, with her current work spanning research and community-based programmes.
She is particularly passionate about translating research into practical interventions that support healthier children and communities.
Wilene Wiggill
Wilene Wiggill has run her private occupational therapy practice in Port Elizabeth since 2013, after two years at Livingstone Hospital and Port Elizabeth Hospital Complex.
Her focus is paediatric OT — helping children work through gross-motor, fine-motor, and perceptual challenges, with a practice built specifically around each child's needs.
Beyond direct therapy, she also offers medico-legal assessments and educational consultations, and her practice includes Equine Assisted Therapy as part of a broader, holistic approach to care.
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Dr. Philippa Fabbri
Dr. Philippa Fabbri has spent over 30 years in education, with a Doctorate in Inclusive Education and a career built around one focus — helping children who struggle to learn in the conventional way.
She founded Elsen Academy after seeing how few specialised options existed for parents needing the right learning environment for their child, and now works directly with parents and schools to build more inclusive classrooms.
As an education consultant, she guides both families and school leaders through what inclusion actually looks like in practice, not just in policy.
Cheryl Cupido
Cheryl Cupido runs Unjumble My Words, a Port Elizabeth practice specialising in remedial reading therapy and English literacy support.
She uses the Phono-Graphix method, working directly on the auditory and decoding skills — blending, segmenting, and phonological awareness — that determine whether a child can actually read with confidence.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Postgraduate Diploma in Education, and her diagnostic-and-intervention approach is built to rebuild both a child's reading ability and their self-belief as a learner.
Zaheera Paruk
Zaheera Paruk co-founded Paruk Optometrists in 2008, alongside her husband and fellow UJ alumnus, Imraan Paruk.
She graduated with her Optometry degree from the University of Johannesburg in 2006, and has spent nearly two decades building a family practice around one idea: comprehensive eye care shouldn't feel like an assembly line.
Her clinical work spans refractive evaluations, pediatric eye examinations, and screening for conditions like glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy.
She's known locally for her patience with young patients, and for making sure care stays personal, not transactional, even as the practice has grown.
Mawaddah Brown
Mawaddah Brown is a Speech-Language Pathologist and certified Life Coach. She trained at the University of Cape Town.
Over seven years, she's worked across multidisciplinary teams with speech, language, and swallowing disorders, from severe cases to mild.
Her experience spans both ends of the age range. She's worked with stroke and head injury survivors at Zandvliet Care Facility. She's also worked with children at Carbonado Autism Centre and Nurture Aurora.
In 2025, she founded The Regrowth Centre. It combines speech therapy with therapeutic life coaching. Her approach is built on one belief: family-centred, holistic care doesn't just help people recover. It helps them thrive.
Reneé Verson
Reneé Verson is a dually qualified Audiologist and Speech Therapist. She's practiced in Gqeberha since 1997.
Before that, she worked in Bloemfontein, including with children at Lettie Fouche School.
Her practice, Reneé Verson Audiologists Inc., treats patients of every age. That spans newborn hearing screening through to adult diagnostics and hearing devices.
She also specialises in balance and vestibular testing, treating disorders that go well beyond hearing alone.
Dr. Tarnia Raad
Dr. Tarnia Raad is a Doctor of Chiropractic based in Gqeberha. She completed her international Master's degree in Chiropractic in Durban. She's a core practitioner at the Bay Life Centre, a multidisciplinary wellness collective.
She treats general musculoskeletal issues. Her clinical focus goes further, though. She specialises in sports injuries, and works closely with pediatric and pregnancy care. Her toolkit includes dry needling, kinesiotaping, and specialised fascia work, alongside standard chiropractic manipulation.
Through the Bay Life Centre, she's part of a genuinely collaborative team. She works alongside biokineticists, physiotherapists, and speech therapists, giving patients access to a full recovery ecosystem rather than treatment in isolation.
Lukie Barnard
Dr Lukie Barnard is a General Practitioner at Klinidoc Newton Park in Port Elizabeth. Her practice focuses on allergies and child health.
She's passionate about child and adolescent healthcare in South Africa. For her, that means looking past the clinical presentation to the context a patient comes from.
She values building relationships and strengthening the systems that support patients, not just treating symptoms.
She's also a strong advocate for child rights and health education. She believes in being a voice for those who aren't heard.
Dr. Carrie Brand
Dr Carrie Brand is a registered Counselling Psychologist based in Gqeberha. She specialises in family dynamics, child psychology, and parenting strategies.
Her academic work looks at children caught in the middle of family change. She co-authored research through Nelson Mandela University on "the voice of the child in parental divorce" — arguing that children's own emotional experience deserves a place in clinical practice, not just the adults' side of the story.
She also runs local workshops on attachment-based parenting. Her focus there is practical: how to set boundaries with a child without losing the connection underneath them.
Dr. Olivia Read
Dr Olivia Read is a specialist ophthalmologist based at Bay Eye Hospital in Gqeberha. She's practiced for nearly two decades, since qualifying at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2000.
Her path there ran through some of the busiest eye units in the country. She interned at Groote Schuur Hospital, then completed her Master of Medicine in Ophthalmology at Stellenbosch. From 2011 to 2017, she consulted at Gqeberha Provincial Hospital, where high patient volumes gave her exposure to almost every kind of eye condition.
Today she specialises in cataract, glaucoma, and squint surgery, along with oculoplastic and nasolacrimal procedures. She treats both adults and children, and still runs a weekly satellite practice in Kariega, so patients outside Gqeberha aren't left without access to her care.
Jana Heath
Jana Heath is a Speech-Language Therapist and Audiologist based in Port Elizabeth. She trained at the University of Pretoria, then spent four years in the Cayman Islands, working with children from birth to age four through an Early Intervention Programme.
Back home since 2015, she's built a career that spans both clinical and business ownership. She runs her own private practice, is Director of The PlayPod Paediatric Centre, and co-owns Heath and Cellier Speech-Language Therapists and Audiologists.
Her specialised training covers a wide range of communication needs. That includes PROMPT, Hanen's "It Takes Two to Talk," the Lidcombe Program for childhood stuttering, and PECS for non-verbal communication. Whether a child struggles to speak, to be understood, or not to speak at all, she's trained specifically for that gap.
Samantha Schonknecht
Samantha Schonknecht is a paediatric physiotherapist. She has over 20 years of experience, currently practising at The Children's Therapy Centre in Gqeberha.
She graduated from Wits in 2002. She then spent 13 years in London as a Clinical Specialist Paediatric Physiotherapist, before returning to South Africa in 2016.
Her focus is complex paediatric disabilities and movement neurology. She's trained in General Movements Assessment, which means she can spot neurological challenges in high-risk infants early. Her broader toolkit includes gait analysis, postural management, and sensory integration therapy.
Michaela van Wyk
Micaela van Wyk is a registered paediatric Occupational Therapist. She's the owner and founder of SENSORi Occupational Therapy in Gqeberha.
Her focus is sensory integration. She helps children build physical coordination and emotional confidence, not just motor skills in isolation.
She partners directly with local schools, including the Sunridge Pre-Primary team, to support children's development right where they learn.
She trained at the University of the Free State, completing her Occupational Therapy degree there.
Clare Hubbard
Clare Hubbard is an Occupational Therapist working within the Eastern Cape Department of Education. She develops therapeutic programmes for learners with barriers to learning, with a particular focus on inclusion for children in mainstream schools.
She trained at UCT, later lectured there, and completed her Master of Science in Occupational Therapy in 2013. Her work centres on family and community-oriented interventions, especially where socioeconomic barriers make access to care harder.
Her interests run wide within that focus. That includes assistive devices for learning, universal access, and rehabilitative services for learners with visual impairment. As she puts it, quoting C.S. Lewis: "Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work."
Mammy Muthray
Mammy Muthray is an Optometrist, formerly of Muthray Optometrist in Port Elizabeth, now closed.
She completed her secondary schooling at M.L. Sultan in KwaZulu-Natal before training professionally in optometry.
In 2000, she completed postgraduate qualifications in Paediatric Optometry, shifting her practice's focus toward children's vision development, eye coordination, and specialised youth eye care alongside standard adult testing.
Clarette Alfond
Clarette Alfond is an Occupational Therapist and owner of Olive Tree Therapy Centre. She's also Co-Founder and Director of The Coral Tree Playschool NPC, a non-profit focused on early childhood development.
She trained at the University of the Free State, then completed a postgraduate qualification in Sensory Integration through the South African Institute for Sensory Integration.
Her clinical focus is paediatric development and therapeutic play. Before founding her own practice in 2020, she worked in Gqeberha and with the Department of Health in the Free State, giving her experience across both private practice and public healthcare settings.
Zaahir Abrahams
Dr Zaahier Abrahams is a General Paediatrician based in Gqeberha. He trained at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, later completing his paediatric registrar training at Walter Sisulu University, and holds an FC Paed (SA) specialist qualification.
His experience spans both public and private practice. He's worked at Dora Nginza Hospital through the Department of Health, and as Senior Medical Officer at Red Cross Children's Hospital in Cape Town. He now also lectures part-time at Nelson Mandela University, alongside running his own practice.
He's certified in Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) and holds the South African Certificate in Asthma Care, giving him specialised training in managing paediatric asthma and chronic respiratory illness.
Tina Siebert
Tina Siebert is an Occupational Therapist and owner of Sprout Occupational Therapy in Gqeberha. She trained at Wits University, then gained early experience in rural KwaZulu-Natal with the Department of Health and the NGO sector — supporting caregivers and providing therapy to children with disabilities.
Since 2022, Tina has practised privately as owner of Sprout OT. She has completed the final stages of her Ayres Sensory Integration training through the South African Institute for Sensory Integration, adding to the range of approaches she uses.
Her experience across rural and suburban settings shapes a holistic approach to therapy.
She offers support both onsite at schools throughout Gqeberha and at her private practice.
Magdaleen Stadler
Magdaleen Stadler is an occupational therapist running her own private practice in Gqeberha since 1998. She trained at Stellenbosch, earning her Bachelor of Occupational Therapy.
Her clinical focus spans sensory processing, child development, and auditory integration. She's a certified practitioner in Ayres Sensory Integration and Neuro-Developmental Therapy, and holds Level 2 Tomatis Method certification, using specialised neuro-auditory training to build listening, language, and communication skills.
She's also trained in DIR-Floortime, a relationship-based approach to childhood emotional growth. Beyond clinical work, she's an accredited facilitator for personality profiling, running workshops for families and teams on communication and relationship management.
Yolande van der Westhuizen
Yolanda van der Westhuizen is a highly accomplished South African Occupational Therapist and Lead Neurotherapist.
Yolanda is the visionary founder of Yolanda Neuro Therapy, a specialised private practice that has spent years transforming lives across the Eastern Cape.
Holding a Master’s Degree in Occupational Therapy from the University of the Western Cape, her advanced clinical work bridges traditional rehabilitation with innovative neurological development. Rather than merely managing symptoms, Yolanda specialises in root-cause interventions—such as early reflex integration, Interactive Metronome (IM©) training, and neurofeedback—to help children and adults optimize brain-body coordination, enhance focus, and conquer daily sensory challenges.
Dr Danielle Dolley
Dr Danielle Dolley is a Biokineticist and lecturer in the Department of Human Movement Science at Nelson Mandela University. She also serves as the South African Project Coordinator for KaziBantu, a healthy schools initiative, and has extensive experience in community-based programmes promoting children’s health and well-being.
Her research focuses on public health promotion, physical activity, and teacher professional development in physical education, with particular emphasis on marginalised and under-resourced school communities.
She has published in peer-reviewed journals and collaborates with local and international partners to advance equitable access to quality physical education and health-promoting opportunities for children and teachers in marginalized communities.