Sept 22nd, 2025 Pre-Conference
Low Vision/Blind
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Dr. Rachel Pilling
Visual Behaviors in Neurodiversity
In this session we will learn the 4 characteristics groups of atypical visual behaviors seen in children with neurodiversity. We will explore the interplay and overlap between ASD and CVI and how this impacts a child's ability to access their sensory world.
See it: Find it: Use it
In this session we will describe a "curious enquiry" approach to assessment and how to uncover atypical visual function which may not be evident using traditional measures
Visual Behaviors in Neurodiversity
In this session we will learn the 4 characteristics groups of atypical visual behaviors seen in children with neurodiversity. We will explore the interplay and overlap between ASD and CVI and how this impacts a child's ability to access their sensory world.
See it: Find it: Use it
In this session we will describe a "curious enquiry" approach to assessment and how to uncover atypical visual function which may not be evident using traditional measures
Breakout Session 1
Dr. Rachel Pilling
Breakout description: Straight to Strategies
In this session we will introduce our simple support strategies for children with visual dysfunction and share our experience of a novel approach to report writing and feedback
Dr. Rachel Pilling
Breakout description: Straight to Strategies
In this session we will introduce our simple support strategies for children with visual dysfunction and share our experience of a novel approach to report writing and feedback
Breakout Session 2
Andrea Montano (she/her), Katie Lane-Karnas (she/her), and Mae Lane-Karnas (they/them)
Breakout description: Adjustments, Accommodations, and Documentation in CVI: Following the Child
Cortical/cerebral visual impairment (CVI) is often difficult to evaluate and describe, variable based on environments and other factors, commonly co-occurs with other conditions impacting learning, and can present quite uniquely between individual children. It falls to education providers to consider and support each child to the best of their ability. In this workshop, one early intervention developmental vision specialist, one parent, and one teen CVIer discuss how they have used observation of the child with CVI to make accommodations at various ages. Presenters give examples of how the child’s response to simple, informed adjustments or accommodations inform what the next step in the child’s learning trajectory may be. Participants will see examples of how these adjustments and accommodations (and the child’s responses) can be documented and communicated to parents and other service providers. This not only builds input for the child’s future functional vision evaluations but also informs the ongoing reflective process that ultimately supports each unique child in the best way possible. Presenters discuss challenges and adjustments made in settings beyond the classroom (home, social, travel, community) and how building our understanding/capacity as vision professionals informs and improves our services for our youngest learners. Examples of how modeling of adjustments and documentation empower the family to take ownership of their role in communicating to those providing vision evaluation.
Andrea Montano (she/her), Katie Lane-Karnas (she/her), and Mae Lane-Karnas (they/them)
Breakout description: Adjustments, Accommodations, and Documentation in CVI: Following the Child
Cortical/cerebral visual impairment (CVI) is often difficult to evaluate and describe, variable based on environments and other factors, commonly co-occurs with other conditions impacting learning, and can present quite uniquely between individual children. It falls to education providers to consider and support each child to the best of their ability. In this workshop, one early intervention developmental vision specialist, one parent, and one teen CVIer discuss how they have used observation of the child with CVI to make accommodations at various ages. Presenters give examples of how the child’s response to simple, informed adjustments or accommodations inform what the next step in the child’s learning trajectory may be. Participants will see examples of how these adjustments and accommodations (and the child’s responses) can be documented and communicated to parents and other service providers. This not only builds input for the child’s future functional vision evaluations but also informs the ongoing reflective process that ultimately supports each unique child in the best way possible. Presenters discuss challenges and adjustments made in settings beyond the classroom (home, social, travel, community) and how building our understanding/capacity as vision professionals informs and improves our services for our youngest learners. Examples of how modeling of adjustments and documentation empower the family to take ownership of their role in communicating to those providing vision evaluation.
Deaf/Hard of Hearing
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Dr. Wyatte Hall
Language Deprivation
Building Resiliency in Families and Children
Language Deprivation
Building Resiliency in Families and Children
Breakout Session 1
Hayley Broadway - Protactile
Breakout description:
Hayley Broadway - Protactile
Breakout description:
Breakout Session 2
Hayley Broadway -Protactile Continued...
Hayley Broadway -Protactile Continued...
Sept 23rd, 2025 Conference Day 1
Low Vision/Blind
KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
Dr. Amy Szarkowski - Fostering Joy
Do you know about the Fostering Joy movement? A coalition of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Professionals, family members of children who are DHH, and professionals working with DHH children have come together to embrace the JOY involved with raising and supporting children who are DHH. This session will introduce Fostering Joy and share evidence-informed information about the positive impact of developing a joy mindset – both for families and for professionals. The presenter will share ideas for how you can foster joy in your work.
Dr. Amy Szarkowski - Fostering Joy
Do you know about the Fostering Joy movement? A coalition of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Professionals, family members of children who are DHH, and professionals working with DHH children have come together to embrace the JOY involved with raising and supporting children who are DHH. This session will introduce Fostering Joy and share evidence-informed information about the positive impact of developing a joy mindset – both for families and for professionals. The presenter will share ideas for how you can foster joy in your work.
Breakout Session 1
Linda Alsop
Breakout description: Tactile Strategies for Young Learners with Deaf-Blindness: Part 1
The sense of touch is the primary learning mode for most children who are deafblind. Their world is often limited to just what is laying at their fingertips. They don’t have the vision and hearing needed to engage them with the world beyond their body. They must use their hands for many different functions: as tools, to listen with, to see with, to communicate with, to explore with, and to express feelings with. Parents and caregivers who interact with children who are deafblind need to learn to treat their hands with utmost respect and use touch in a careful and thoughtful way. They also need to implement tactile strategies to maximize the development of learning and communication of these children. Part 1 of this series will address the early development of the tactile system and explain how problems in the auditory and visual systems impact that development. Tactile cognition and the brain will be discussed, along with the importance of the bodily-tactile modality for learning and communication.
Linda Alsop
Breakout description: Tactile Strategies for Young Learners with Deaf-Blindness: Part 1
The sense of touch is the primary learning mode for most children who are deafblind. Their world is often limited to just what is laying at their fingertips. They don’t have the vision and hearing needed to engage them with the world beyond their body. They must use their hands for many different functions: as tools, to listen with, to see with, to communicate with, to explore with, and to express feelings with. Parents and caregivers who interact with children who are deafblind need to learn to treat their hands with utmost respect and use touch in a careful and thoughtful way. They also need to implement tactile strategies to maximize the development of learning and communication of these children. Part 1 of this series will address the early development of the tactile system and explain how problems in the auditory and visual systems impact that development. Tactile cognition and the brain will be discussed, along with the importance of the bodily-tactile modality for learning and communication.
Breakout Session 2
Linda Alsop
Breakout description: Tactile Strategies for Young Learners with Deaf-Blindness: Part 2
Part 2 of this series will focus on the use of tactile strategies to enhance learning and promote the development of language and communication skills in young children who experience deafblindness.
Linda Alsop
Breakout description: Tactile Strategies for Young Learners with Deaf-Blindness: Part 2
Part 2 of this series will focus on the use of tactile strategies to enhance learning and promote the development of language and communication skills in young children who experience deafblindness.
Breakout Session 3
Kitty Edstrand, Ph.D., TSVI, COMS, ECSE, Innovation, Development & Research Coordinator, New Mexico School f/t Blind
Luanne Stordahl, MS, DSIII, Developmental Vision Specialist, New Mexico School f/t Blind
Breakout description: Learning Medica Assessment 0-3
The Learning Media Assessment provides a framework and roadmap for students as they navigate their educational journey, however, conducting a LMA for our youngest learners presents unique challenges. This session will focus on how the LMA can provide rich, holistic, information about the child’s sensory and developmental skills while focusing on building skills in all areas; visual, auditory, tactile, and concept development. This approach emphasizes assessing, reporting, and supporting the development of the child’s entire sensory profile and how they use their sensory channels to access and learn about their world rather than ranking a child’s literacy/learning media at such a young age. This allows for an informed learning media determination to be made once the child is ready for a conventional or functional literacy program in school.
Kitty Edstrand, Ph.D., TSVI, COMS, ECSE, Innovation, Development & Research Coordinator, New Mexico School f/t Blind
Luanne Stordahl, MS, DSIII, Developmental Vision Specialist, New Mexico School f/t Blind
Breakout description: Learning Medica Assessment 0-3
The Learning Media Assessment provides a framework and roadmap for students as they navigate their educational journey, however, conducting a LMA for our youngest learners presents unique challenges. This session will focus on how the LMA can provide rich, holistic, information about the child’s sensory and developmental skills while focusing on building skills in all areas; visual, auditory, tactile, and concept development. This approach emphasizes assessing, reporting, and supporting the development of the child’s entire sensory profile and how they use their sensory channels to access and learn about their world rather than ranking a child’s literacy/learning media at such a young age. This allows for an informed learning media determination to be made once the child is ready for a conventional or functional literacy program in school.
Deaf/Hard of Hearing
Breakout Session 1
Dr. Amy Szarkowski-Fathers
Breakout description: Fathers in Early Intervention: Involvement, Self-Efficacy, and Meeting Family Needs
Most EI Providers report working with more mothers than fathers. Aside from scheduling, why might that be the case? What unique contributions can fathers make to the EI? How might we, as professionals, need to adjust the services that we provide to better provide supports to fathers? Informed by an extensive review of what is known about fathers’ involvement in EI and studies of what fathers gain from involvement in EI, this presentation will tackle those issues. Participants will learn about the importance of self-efficacy in working with fathers and gain strategies for meeting the needs of the whole family through family-centered early intervention.
Dr. Amy Szarkowski-Fathers
Breakout description: Fathers in Early Intervention: Involvement, Self-Efficacy, and Meeting Family Needs
Most EI Providers report working with more mothers than fathers. Aside from scheduling, why might that be the case? What unique contributions can fathers make to the EI? How might we, as professionals, need to adjust the services that we provide to better provide supports to fathers? Informed by an extensive review of what is known about fathers’ involvement in EI and studies of what fathers gain from involvement in EI, this presentation will tackle those issues. Participants will learn about the importance of self-efficacy in working with fathers and gain strategies for meeting the needs of the whole family through family-centered early intervention.
Breakout Session 2
Michella Basas, Ph.D.
Breakout description: The Radical Middle Part 1
In the first session, participants will take a deep dive into bias and how that impacts professional practice. The focus will be on parents, the deaf community, professional community and strategies for better communication between and across groups. Participants will also explore case studies with discussion prompts and use what they have learned in addressing child/family needs from a broader perspective.
Michella Basas, Ph.D.
Breakout description: The Radical Middle Part 1
In the first session, participants will take a deep dive into bias and how that impacts professional practice. The focus will be on parents, the deaf community, professional community and strategies for better communication between and across groups. Participants will also explore case studies with discussion prompts and use what they have learned in addressing child/family needs from a broader perspective.
Breakout Session 3
Michella Basas, Ph.D.
Breakout description: The Radical Middle Part 2
The second session will look at “The “Art” of being an expert”. Participants will dive into specific strategies for having more productive discussion and collaboration between and across perceived polarized groups (LSL professionals v. Bilingual Specialists, or Parents v. Deaf Community, for example). In this session, participants will work together to create visual representations of their ideas of moving to the middle in their own professional practice.
Michella Basas, Ph.D.
Breakout description: The Radical Middle Part 2
The second session will look at “The “Art” of being an expert”. Participants will dive into specific strategies for having more productive discussion and collaboration between and across perceived polarized groups (LSL professionals v. Bilingual Specialists, or Parents v. Deaf Community, for example). In this session, participants will work together to create visual representations of their ideas of moving to the middle in their own professional practice.
Deafblind
Breakout Session 3
Maurice Belote
Breakout description: Closure, Ambiguity and Stress, and Their Impact on Children and Young Adults who are Deafblind: Part 1
All people have a need for closure—from small things like finishing daily activities to larger events like achieving major milestones. This basic need for closure is likely greater for children and young adults who are deafblind who may not have as many opportunities to experience both large and small moments of closure throughout their lives. Lack of opportunities to satisfactorily experience closure may lead to increased stress and anxiety, much of which could be avoided or at least minimized. This stress and anxiety can be compounded by ambiguity, which is something we all experience but that may be magnified simply as a result in living life as a person who is deafblind. This session will explore why closure is important, the impact of ambiguity on stress and anxiety, and simple things we can do to support the everyday lives of our children and students.
Maurice Belote
Breakout description: Closure, Ambiguity and Stress, and Their Impact on Children and Young Adults who are Deafblind: Part 1
All people have a need for closure—from small things like finishing daily activities to larger events like achieving major milestones. This basic need for closure is likely greater for children and young adults who are deafblind who may not have as many opportunities to experience both large and small moments of closure throughout their lives. Lack of opportunities to satisfactorily experience closure may lead to increased stress and anxiety, much of which could be avoided or at least minimized. This stress and anxiety can be compounded by ambiguity, which is something we all experience but that may be magnified simply as a result in living life as a person who is deafblind. This session will explore why closure is important, the impact of ambiguity on stress and anxiety, and simple things we can do to support the everyday lives of our children and students.
Sept 24, 2025 Conference Day 2
Low Vision/Blind
Breakout Session
Tanni Anthony, Ph.D.
Breakout description: Lessons in Developmental O&M: An Active Learning Approach
The foundations of early spatial learning and movement set the stage for purposeful movement. This session will detail how to create active learning environments to support O&M skills from the earliest days through three key stages of infancy. Participants will learn to describe the stages of early infancy as they relate to the development of purposeful movement, to create environments that support the child's self-discovery of body concepts and self-initiated and goal-oriented movement, and the role of the O&M specialist in the early years of a child with blindness/deaf-blindness and their contributions to support the IFSP team.
Tanni Anthony, Ph.D.
Breakout description: Lessons in Developmental O&M: An Active Learning Approach
The foundations of early spatial learning and movement set the stage for purposeful movement. This session will detail how to create active learning environments to support O&M skills from the earliest days through three key stages of infancy. Participants will learn to describe the stages of early infancy as they relate to the development of purposeful movement, to create environments that support the child's self-discovery of body concepts and self-initiated and goal-oriented movement, and the role of the O&M specialist in the early years of a child with blindness/deaf-blindness and their contributions to support the IFSP team.
Deaf/Hard of Hearing
Breakout Session
Dr. Aaron Shield-Autism and Deaf Children
Breakout description: What can we learn about early intervention from Deaf parents of autistic children?
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) entails a host of social and cognitive challenges, including difficulties with visual attention (Elsabbagh et al., 2013). The ability to follow the eye gaze of a caregiver, known as joint attention (JA), is strongly linked to language acquisition for both typically-developing children and autistic children (Adamson et al., 2009; Bakeman & Adamson, 1984; Charman, 2003; Loveland & Landry, 1986; Mundy & Gomes, 1998; Yoder et al., 2015). It is thought that early disruptions in these language-rich interactions between caregivers and autistic children have cascading effects on language development throughout childhood.
There is evidence to suggest that Deaf parents, who are uniquely attuned to the visual modality, have considerable advantages over hearing parents in their ability to obtain, maintain, and direct their children’s visual attention. For example, Deaf parents have been found to spend more time engaged in dyadic interaction with their typical deaf children than hearing parents (Meadow et al., 1981). Deaf parents are also more attuned to their children’s visual attention (Spencer et al., 1992) and are more successful at gaining and obtaining the visual attention of their deaf children than hearing parents (Harris & Mohay, 1997). All of these findings suggest that Deaf parents – by virtue of relying primarily on the visual modality for communication – exhibit qualitative differences from hearing parents in their interactions with their children.
In this presentation, I will describe preliminary results of a study investigating interactions between both Deaf and hearing parents and their young autistic children (ages 3-6). Through coding of play-based interactions, I will describe the strategies that Deaf and hearing parents of autistic children deploy to establish and maintain episodes of joint attention, and seek to identify which strategies lead to more successful interactions, with more frequent and longer episodes of joint attention.
Dr. Aaron Shield-Autism and Deaf Children
Breakout description: What can we learn about early intervention from Deaf parents of autistic children?
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) entails a host of social and cognitive challenges, including difficulties with visual attention (Elsabbagh et al., 2013). The ability to follow the eye gaze of a caregiver, known as joint attention (JA), is strongly linked to language acquisition for both typically-developing children and autistic children (Adamson et al., 2009; Bakeman & Adamson, 1984; Charman, 2003; Loveland & Landry, 1986; Mundy & Gomes, 1998; Yoder et al., 2015). It is thought that early disruptions in these language-rich interactions between caregivers and autistic children have cascading effects on language development throughout childhood.
There is evidence to suggest that Deaf parents, who are uniquely attuned to the visual modality, have considerable advantages over hearing parents in their ability to obtain, maintain, and direct their children’s visual attention. For example, Deaf parents have been found to spend more time engaged in dyadic interaction with their typical deaf children than hearing parents (Meadow et al., 1981). Deaf parents are also more attuned to their children’s visual attention (Spencer et al., 1992) and are more successful at gaining and obtaining the visual attention of their deaf children than hearing parents (Harris & Mohay, 1997). All of these findings suggest that Deaf parents – by virtue of relying primarily on the visual modality for communication – exhibit qualitative differences from hearing parents in their interactions with their children.
In this presentation, I will describe preliminary results of a study investigating interactions between both Deaf and hearing parents and their young autistic children (ages 3-6). Through coding of play-based interactions, I will describe the strategies that Deaf and hearing parents of autistic children deploy to establish and maintain episodes of joint attention, and seek to identify which strategies lead to more successful interactions, with more frequent and longer episodes of joint attention.
Deafblind
Breakout Session
Maurice Belote
Breakout description: Closure, Ambiguity and Stress, and Their Impact on Children and Young Adults who are Deafblind: Part 2
The need for closure is a basic human need. Children and students who are deafblind may not satisfactorily experience closure or, because of their deafblindness, may not perceive that they have experienced closure. In addition, access, perception, and incidental learning all play important roles in closure and its relationship to ambiguity and stress. This session will build on concepts and strategies from the previous session and allow opportunities for small and large-group problem solving. Attendance at Part One of this topic will be helpful but not required; the session will include a very brief review of main themes from the previous session.
Maurice Belote
Breakout description: Closure, Ambiguity and Stress, and Their Impact on Children and Young Adults who are Deafblind: Part 2
The need for closure is a basic human need. Children and students who are deafblind may not satisfactorily experience closure or, because of their deafblindness, may not perceive that they have experienced closure. In addition, access, perception, and incidental learning all play important roles in closure and its relationship to ambiguity and stress. This session will build on concepts and strategies from the previous session and allow opportunities for small and large-group problem solving. Attendance at Part One of this topic will be helpful but not required; the session will include a very brief review of main themes from the previous session.
Closing KEYNOTE: Indigenous Voices-Parent Perspectives Panel
