2025 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference
March 9-11, 2025 • Pittsburgh, PA
DAVID L. LAWRENCE CONVENTION CENTER
Award Winners 2025
Valerie Abbott
Valerie Abbott is an enthusiastic parent leader and EHDI champion, representing families of infants and toddlers with postnatal hearing loss. Her personal outreach e􀆯orts have informed and educated thousands of people across the United States about the prevalence, risk factors and consequences of early childhood hearing loss. She passionately and creatively encourages family members, educators, professionals, and systems to prioritize hearing health monitoring and screening throughout early childhood – recognizing that far too many deaf and/or hard of hearing children experience preventable developmental delays simply because they were not identified earlier.
Her EHDI involvement began in 2016 as a 1-3-6 Family Educator at the Center for Family Involvement at the Partnership for People with Disabilities in Virginia. At the same time, Valerie had learned that the Virginia chapter of Hands & Voices was a few weeks away from closing their doors. In less than six months, Valerie successfully relaunched Virginia Hands and Voices and helped to recruit a new board of directors. As a 1-3-6 Family Educator at CFI, she supported families and worked closely with Virginia EHDI staff on projects aimed at gathering information from local audiologists and newborn hearing screening teams. In 2017, she was offered a seat on the VA EHDI Advisory Committee and in 2018 Valerie’s CFI/EHDI role expanded. She was named VA EHDI Learning Community Coordinator – helping establish, cultivate and manage five robust learning communities. Later that year, she was elected co-chair of the Advisory Committee – the first parent to hold a top leadership position.
In 2019, Valerie served as co-leader of the Hearing Targeted Congenital Cytomegalovirus (cCMV) Screening Protocols workgroup. Targeting cCMV screening began in September 2020, a few months after the COVID-19 pandemic hit Virginia. During the COVID shutdown, Valerie’s concerns for families of children with unidentified postnatal hearing loss grew. Recalling how her daughter’s hearing loss was discovered by way of an early intervention referral, Valerie wondered if and how developmental milestones would be monitored and hearing loss identified during the health crisis.
This led to her establishing the National Late Onset Hearing Loss Awareness Campaign in 2021with Justin Osmond of the Olive Osmond Hearing Fund. The National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management (NCHAM), the American Cochlear Implant Alliance (ACIA), and the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) all jumped on board, offering training, webinars and social media outreach. In 2022, Valerie partnered with Virginia legislators on a bill that established May 4-10 as Pediatric Late Onset Hearing Loss Awareness Week through the Virginia General Assembly.