Dr. Dilini Vipulaguna

• Qualifications: MD Paediatrics, MBBS, DCH

• Designation: Consultant Community Paediatrician

• Institute / Hospital / Clinic: Colombo North Teaching Hospital, Ayati National Centre, Base Hospital Wathupitiwala, Ministry of Health

• Areas of Interest: Childhood neurodevelopmental disorders, childhood disability, child safeguarding

• Positions held: Clinical Lead- Ayati National Centre for Children with Developmental Disabilities Council member of the Sri Lanka College of Paediatricians 2024/25, 2022/23 Council member of the Sri Lanka Association for Child Development since 2022, President-elect for 2025/27 Member of Technical Advisory Committee to National Steering Committee for Children with Developmental Disabilities National Representative of Asia-Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood Development Member of Child protection committee of Sri Lanka College of Paediatricians Member of the Working group for inclusion and children with special needs in World Forum Foundation

• Brief Biosketch: I am the first board-certified Consultant Community Paediatrician in Sri Lanka. I am involved in the direct clinical care of children with developmental disorders, and disabilities, and with safeguarding concerns in the Gampaha District, Sri Lanka. Currently, I work at Ayati National Centre for Children with developmental disabilities, “Lama Piyasa”- safeguarding ward in Colombo North Teaching Hospital and Base Hospital Wathupitiwala. I am a certified assessor for Bayley scales of infant and toddler development, Griffith III developmental assessment and Schedule of Growing Skills standardised assessments. I specialised in autism assessments and interventions and am a qualified assessor for Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule Second Edition (ADOS-2) and Brief Observation of Symptoms of Autism (BOSA). I also have basisc and advanced qualifications for General Movement Assessments (GMA), Hammersmith Infant Neurological Examination (HINE) and Neonatal Visual Assessments (NVA). I am the President-elect for Sri Lanka Association for Child Development 2025/27. I have made many International collaborations to support the establishment of this novel speciality in Sri Lanka. I am a“Global Leader for Young Children“ of the World Forum Foundation for the year 2022/23. I am the National representative for Sri Lanka for the International Association for Autism Research (INSAR). I have received the international scholarships from Australasian and American Academies of Cerebral palsy and developmental Medicine in 2020 and 2023 respectively. I was one of the main resource persons who developed National Guidelines for Children with Cerebral Palsy, Autism Spectrum Disorder and other neurodevelopmental disorders through the INCLUDE program collaborating with Family Health Bureau. I am a principal or co-investigator in several research projects on child development and disability. The NAMASTE (Neurodevelopment and Autism in South Asia Treatment and Evidence) project is one of the ten projects funded by NIHR in 2022 through the Global Health Research Unit, where I am a Principal Investigator. I am a teacher and trainer for medical and allied health teams including MD community paediatrics, Mphil psychology, BSc speech and hearing sciences, occupational therapy and physiotherapy, MBBS, PG Diploma in Child Health, PG Diploma in Family Medicine. As a team leader, I work towards developing infrastructure and building the capacity of teams to establish Community Paediatric services in different parts of the country. As an advocate, I work to promote inclusivity, community awareness and engagement to uplift the lives of vulnerable children in Sri Lanka. My vision is to build universal intervention services and to ensure the inclusion of all vulnerable children including ones with disabilities in all layers of society in Sri Lanka.