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Overview

My overarching career goal is to improve outcomes for children who are deaf or hard of hearing. This work involves families and providers, and interacts with many systems of care. As the director of the Colorado Home Intervention Program (CHIP) for many years, I was in a position to influence the quality of services for infants and toddlers in one state.

Since leaving that position in 2010, I have expanded my reach to enhance systems across the United States, as well as in other countries. This has been done primarily in the higher education world, lecturing and working with local universities in both an academic and research setting.

My intent remains the same: to support individualized assessments and treatments, to promote evidence-based practices, to measure the effectiveness of services, and to improve access to quality services via telehealth.  See each tab below for further details on my involvement in these various capacities.

Professional Roles

I am best known for my expertise and contributions to early identification, intervention, and treatment of children who are deaf or hard of hearing. This work prioritizes measurable effective education and health care options that are respectful of the family and emphasize what is best for the child based on an individual case-by-case assessment. I am active in state and federal initiatives to promote evidence-based early intervention practices.To best facilitate these outcomes, I currently serve as the director of The Keystone Project. In this capacity, I provide consultation and technical assistance to various programs in the United States and internationally that are working with infants and toddlers with hearing loss.

In addition to my education credentials (BA, Elementary Education, The American University, Washington, DC; graduate coursework in Education of the Hearing-Impaired, Gallaudet University, Washington, DC and University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO; MA, Speech/Language Pathology, University of Denver; PhD, University of Northern Colorado), I hold an adjunct faculty position in the Department of Education and Counseling Psychology and Special Education at the University of British Columbia. I also lecture in the Department of Special Education at the University of Northern Colorado. I have been an Instructor in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, as well as a Clinical Instructor in the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of Colorado Health School of Medicine in Denver, Colorado.

I also hold the Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech/Language Pathology and have endorsement as a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing issued by the Colorado Department of Education. I served as a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing in an urban school district for many years.

 

I am the author of The FAMILY Assessment, an evaluation used with infants and toddlers with hearing loss to plan intervention and support research in the field. I also publish regularly on my various topics of interest, with my current focus being the delivery of early intervention services through telehealth.

For almost 20 years, I served as the Director of Early Intervention and Education Programs at the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind (CSDB), directing the Colorado Home Intervention Program (CHIP) and providing technical assistance to early intervention and preschool programs serving deaf and hard of hearing children statewide.

My current research focuses on telehealth. I am the co-investigator for a Phase II Clinical Trial funded by the National Institutes of Health to study services delivered to young children who are deaf (www.tacitstudy.org). Other projects I’ve been involved in include:

  • Co-Investigator, Effectiveness of Therapy via Telemedicine following Cochlear Implants, National Institutes of Health (1 U01 DC013529-01), University of Colorado, Denver, CO, September, 2013 – present
  • Principal Investigator, TeleCITE: Telehealth for Cochlear Implant Therapy Exchange; Colorado Clinical & Translational Sciences Institute (National Institutes of Health) 2010 – 2011
  • Principal Investigator, Maternal and Child Health Grant for Universal Newborn Hearing; University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 2000-2008
  • Deaf/Hard of Hearing Adult Role Model Program; Colorado Department of Education 1997-2007
  • Colorado Individual Performance Profile-Preschool Level (Pre-CIPP); Colorado Department of Education 1991-2007
  • Services to Deafblind Children Birth-5 years; Colorado Department of Education 1991-2007
  • Expanding Services to Spanish-Speaking Families; Colorado Commission for the Deaf/Hard of Hearing, Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind 2005-2007
  • Parent-Centered Services to Later-Identified Children with Hearing Loss; Colorado Department of Education 1998-1999, 2002-2003.
  • Case Management for Children with Low Incidence Disabilities; Department of Epidemiology, Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment 1999-2002
  • Family-focused Intervention and FAMILY Assessment; Part H Grant, Colorado Department of Education 1989
  • FAMILY Assessment for Deafblind Children; Colorado Department of Education 1988-1989
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My most recent Curriculum Vita can be found here.

Details include education history and prior job experience, as well as a complete listing of publications.
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