2026 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference
March 15-17, 2026 • Jacksonville, FL
3/17/2024 | 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM | EHDI 101 | Centennial E-F
EHDI 101
Presentation:
3478265_16531SandraBattiste.pdf
Handouts:
Handout is not Available
Transcripts:
3478265_16531KarlWhite.RTF
Presenters/Authors
Karl White
(Primary Presenter), Utah State University, karl.white@usu.edu;
Dr. White is a Professor of Psychology, the Emma Eccles Jones Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Education, and the founding Director of the National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management. He has been the PI or Co-PI for over $50 million of competitively awarded research. His work has been recognized with awards from such diverse organizations as the Deafness Research Foundation, the American Association for Speech Language and Hearing, The Swedish Society of Medicine, and the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf. He has hundreds of publications and presentations at scholarly meetings, and has been an invited speaker to more than 35 countries. He also serves on many national and international advisory groups for organizations such as the United States Department of Health and Human Services, the World Health Organization, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
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No relevant financial relationship exists.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
AAA DISCLOSURE:
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No relevant financial relationship exists.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
Allison Sedey
(Co-Presenter), University of Colorado-Boulder, Allison.Sedey@colorado.edu;
Allison Sedey is a speech pathologist, audiologist, and researcher. She is currently the director of the Early Language Outcomes Lab (ELO) at the University of Colorado-Boulder and is the assessment and accountability coordinator for the early intervention outreach program at the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind. Dr. Sedey received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she studied language acquisition in children who are deaf/hard of hearing as well as in children who have Down syndrome. For the past 30 years, she has served as the director or project coordinator on a variety of grant-funded research projects examining predictors of language outcomes in young children who are deaf or hard of hearing.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
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• Receives Grants for Independent contractor from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
AAA DISCLOSURE:
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Financial relationship with University of Colorado-Boulder
Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blinda.
Nature: Salary received from a Cooperative Agreement with the CDC at the time of this project.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
Tommy Horejes
(Co-Presenter), The Access Foundation, Thorejes@gmail.com;
Thomas “Tommy” Horejes, Ph.D. has decades of academic and professional experience in legal policy & advocacy. His training in both the academic and professional canon is a multi/inter/trans disciplinary focus on law, advocacy, social justice & impact, policy studies, communication accessibility, and public administration. He takes great passion doing research & development on law, data, policy trends, education, consumer service, and innovation with the denominating factor in making a positive social impact to and for all.
Academically, Dr. Horejes has 15+ years of teaching disability policy, law, and sociology in higher education, 13+ peer-reviewed published articles including (Re)conceptualizing Disability Policy Frameworks for the Journal of Policy Practice, and presented 70+ scholarly works on legal policy, accessibility, education, and justice studies for industry conferences, including the International Sociological Association and the American Educational Research Association.
Professionally, he is current Chief Advocacy Officer for SignWow and former Director of Policy & Advocacy for Telecommunications for the Deaf/HH (TDI) as a national leader in policy advocacy, education, and innovation to foster full accessibility, equity, and inclusion in Information and Communications Technology. Prior to SignWow, Thomas was Associate Provost for Gallaudet University; and Executive Director of Deaf Empowerment Awareness Foundation (DEAF, Inc.), a non-profit organization dedicated to empower, raise Awareness, and bridge a sustainable Foundation of advocacy, communication and accessibility for the Deaf, Hard of Hearing, DeafBlind, and the Hearing communities. He was also a former advocate for the Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness (GLAD), the largest deaf-run non-profit organization that provided legal advocacy and empowerment to deaf and hard of hearing consumers.
Tommy currently serves on the Board for State of Maryland’s Hands & Voices, Deaf Youth Sports Foundation (dysf.org) and member of Maryland Department of Health’s Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Advisory Council. Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri where he attended Central Institute for the Deaf (CID), he?? currently lives in rural Maryland with his wife and blended family of very active children. When he is not busy with legal policy advocacy work, he enjoys watching his kids play baseball, soccer, basketball, and volleyball along with road biking, cooking, and tending to his small farm and animals.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
No relevant financial relationship exists.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
AAA DISCLOSURE:
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Financial relationship with VTEHDI Program is supported by HRSA funding.
Nature: Salary and Fringe from HRSA funding for the VTEHDI Program.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
Lisa Kovacs
(Co-Presenter), Hands & Voices , lisakovacs@handsandvoices.org ;
Lisa Kovacs is the Director of Programs for Hands & Voices Headquarters and part of the core management team for the Family Leadership in Language and Learning (FL3) Center. She founded the Indiana Chapter of Hands & Voices in 2004, was the Guide By Your Side (GBYS) Coordinator for IN from 2009-2012 and has been working for Hands & Voices Headquarters since 2010. She and her husband Brian have four young adult children including her son who is hard of hearing/deaf. Lisa received the 2019 Antonio Brancia Maxon Award for EHDI Excellence. Her professional interest include; Parent Advocacy; Implementation of parent participation and engagement in systems building; Parent to Parent Support; Deaf Education Reform; IDEA, ESSA, Part C and Part B Training to Parents, and Parent Leadership Training and Development.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
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No relevant financial relationship exists.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
AAA DISCLOSURE:
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No relevant financial relationship exists.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
Arielle Spellun
(Co-Presenter), Division of Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics, arielle.spellun@bmc.org;
Arielle H. Spellun MD is a hearing Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrician at Boston Medical Center and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. Clinically, Dr. Spellun conducts developmental assessments and provides longitudinal care for children with developmental differences and disabilities with a special focus on caring for children who are d/Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) and their families. Her research focuses on supporting DHH children and their families in the pediatric medical home and educating clinical providers on how to care for DHH children from a Deaf health equity perspective in order to improve linguistic and developmental outcomes.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
No relevant financial relationship exists.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
AAA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
No relevant financial relationship exists.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
Erika Odom
(Co-Presenter), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, iyo7@cdc.gov;
CAPT Erika Odom (Captain, United States Public Health Service) has spent 15 years shaping science and programs using a health equity perspective grounded in biopsychosocial frameworks in human development. She received her PhD in Applied Developmental Sciences from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2008 and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, researching maternal mental health and the association with various developmental outcomes for young children. CAPT Odom joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2010 as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer where her work focused on promoting supportive environments for women who choose to breastfeed. She then went on the serve with the National Center for Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, honing skills in registry data collection, evaluation and translational research within populations living with blood disorders and that have been systematically marginalized in healthcare. From 2014-2023, CAPT Odom served as an Epidemiologist in the Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention. There she excelled in program management and developed subject matter expertise focused on the pre-hospital environment and improving the stroke and cardiac chain of survival. In her most recent tenure, she serves as the Team Lead for the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Program, working with a team of passionate public health professionals, shaping the future of early hearing surveillance and data quality improvement.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
No relevant financial relationship exists.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
AAA DISCLOSURE:
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Financial relationship with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .
Nature: .
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
Sandra Battiste
(Co-Presenter), Sandra@example.com;
Sandra Battiste has over 15 years of government experience in Public Health. She has worked within a myriad of Maternal and Child Health (MCH) programs including Metabolic and Newborn Hearing screening, Home Visitation, Safe Sleep and some adolescent health programs. Her career began with the District of Columbia (DC) Government where she worked with the both the Metabolic Screening and EHDI Programs. Eventually she became the EHDI Coordinator for DC. After seven years with the DC Government, Sandra took the opportunity serve as a public health analyst for the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) where her work with EHDI continues. Not only is she the project officer (PO) for some impressive EHDI programs but she also is the PO for the Family Leadership in Language and Learning Center (also known as the FL3 Center). Additionally, Sandra also works with the Family-to-Family Health Information Centers Program. Sandra serves on several work groups within the Bureau and across agencies.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
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AAA DISCLOSURE:
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