Invited Speakers

Marc Marschark, Ph.D., is a Professor at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, a college of Rochester Institute of Technology, where he directs the Center for Education Research Partnerships. He also has appointments at the Moray House School of Education at the University of Edinburgh and the School of  Psychology at the University of Aberdeen. Active in research concerning deaf individuals since the 1980s, his primary interest is in relations among language, learning, and development. His current research focuses on relations of language and learning by deaf children and adults in formal and informal educational settings. He founded and edits the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education and the Perspectives on Deafness series, both published by Oxford University Press. His 17 written and edited books include Raising and Educating a Deaf Child, Educating Deaf Students: From Research to Practice, and Deaf Cognition: Foundations and Outcomes.

Website

http://www.rit.edu/ntid/cerp

Attachments

• Grade Expectations: Educating Deaf Students in the Mainstream
• Myths and Misunderstandings in Educating Deaf Students

Alice Eriks-Brophy is an associate professor in the Department of Speech-Language Pathology at the University of Toronto, where she teaches courses in aural rehabilitation and articulation development and disorders.  Her research examines the role of parental involvement in early intervention for children with hearing loss, along with outcomes of early identification and intervention programs for orally educated children with hearing loss.  An ongoing research project examines communication outcomes for sixty preschool children enrolled in AVT programs in the Greater Toronto Area who represent five minority language groupings that include Mandarin, Cantonese, Arabic, Urdu and Somali.  A recently completed project examined the use of videoconferencing in the provision of culturally appropriate S-LP assessments with twenty First Nations children in remote and isolated regions of northern Ontario.  Prior to embarking on an academic career, Alice worked as an itinerant teacher of the deaf and heard of hearing for the Montreal Oral School for the Deaf.  She was also an elementary classroom teacher on several First Nations reserves in northern and southern Québec.

About Dr Connie Mayer

Dr. Mayer is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at York University in Toronto, cross appointed to the Graduate Program in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics. She teaches courses related to language and literacy learning in the graduate program and in the Teacher Preparation Program in the Education of Deaf and Hard of Hearing (D/HH) students. Prior to coming to York, Dr. Mayer worked for more than twenty years in Ontario as a consultant, administrator and teacher of deaf and hard of hearing students from preschool through to post-secondary. She has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education and is currently a member of the editorial board of the American Annals of the Deaf. In 2007, her article Can the Linguistic Interdependence Theory support a Bilingual-Bicultural Model of Literacy Education for Deaf Students? was selected by Oxford University Press as one of its seminal papers published in the past century. Past projects include a five year investigation of the use of two-way text messaging with D/HH adolescents and a four year study of signed classroom discourse. Current studies focus on the relationships among cognition, auditory skills and early literacy development in D/HH children, and on the written language development of learners with cochlear implants.

Professor Greg Leigh is Chair of RIDBC Renwick Centre for Research and Professional Education. The Centre, located in Sydney, is administered by  the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children in affiliation with The University of Newcastle, Australia. He holds degrees in Special Education from Griffith University; a Master of Science (Speech and Hearing) degree from Washington University (Central Institute for the Deaf) in the USA; and a PhD in Special Education from Monash University. He is a Fellow of the Australian College of Educators.
 
Professor Leigh has had a distinguished career in education of the deaf and has published widely in this field. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Deafness and Education International and Phonetics and Speech Sciences. He serves on numerous Australian government consultative committees on issues related to deafness and is currently chairman of the Australian National Newborn Hearing Screening Committee.  He is a former National President of the Education Commission for the World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf and is Chair of the International Steering Committees of both the Asia-Pacific Congress on Deafness (APCD) and the International Congress on Education of the Deaf (ICED). He has held positions in several Australian universities and was an International Visiting Scholar at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (Rochester Institute of Technology) in Rochester, New York.

David is currently Principal and Chief Executive Officer of the Kelston Deaf Education Centre in Auckland New Zealand.  The Centre provides a residential school and a range of specialist services to Deaf and hearing impaired students throughout the North Island of New Zealand.  He previously held management positions in four other schools including eight years served as Principal of two state full primary schools (Y1-8). 

David has a particular interest in quality as the foundation for educational management.  This interest has been developed through his studies towards, a post graduate Diplomas in Education Management and Business (Quality) Management.

At Kelston Deaf Education Centre quality is best expressed through students’ rights to be part of a community that promotes full access, participation and achievement.  Kelston serves a community that is culturally and geographically diverse.   Through his wide ranging teaching career and current position David has experience in all aspects of school leadership and management from dealing with staff and parent groups to dealing with policy issues at a national level.

Melissa McCarthy, M.E.D., B.A., Melissa is originally from Boston, Massachusetts. She has worked in a variety of educational settings with children from birth to 18 who have a hearing impairment. She moved to Sydney, Australia in 2004 to work at The Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children (RIDBC). Melissa is the Manager of RIDBC Teleschool.

I have worked in Deaf Education for twenty years and have taken on various roles such as Resource Teacher of the Deaf, Satellite Class Teacher and Advisor of Deaf Children.

I am currently working in the role of Deaf Regional Coordinator. This covers work in the wide geographical area of northern New Zealand. In this role I manage the services and Resource Teachers of the Deaf. I hold a Masters degree in Special Education specializing in hearing impairment.

Attachments

• Promoting Social Interaction for Deaf Students who are Geographically Dispersed

Dianne Hill has an M. Ed. in Counseling from Auckland University [1994], a Trained Teachers Certificate [1978], a Diploma in The Education of The Hearing Impaired [1988], and she was a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellow in 1996.

In 1989 Dianne began working as a Transition teacher at Kelston Deaf Education Centre [KDEC] and in 1990 she won the new position of KDEC School Counsellor. Dianne continues in this role and works with Deaf children at KDEC, in KDEC’s Auckland and South Auckland Resource classes and with families and caregivers.

Dianne lives in Auckland, New Zealand and enjoys Tai Chi, photography, and completing half marathons.

Attachments

• Kelston Deaf Education Centre Abstract

Debbie Lawrence works as an Itinerant Counsellor in the Waikato, Bay of Plenty region.  She describes herself as an oral deaf professional who shares life experiences as a hearing aid user with young deaf and hearing impaired students in mainstream school settings.  After a varied work career in New Zealand and overseas, she became a Secondary teacher specialising in Geography, Social Studies and Economics.  It was the experiences of her daughter as a young person with a hearing loss, that closely connected with those that she had as a young person that prompted her to consider a move to Deaf Education.  More recently, Debbie has qualified as a Counsellor specialising in Narrative Therapy.

Attachments

• Kelston Deaf Education Centre Abstract

Celia King. M. Couns (Hons) is severely deaf and communicates in spoken English and NZSL. Although trained mainly in Narrative Therapy, she prefers to work in the realm of Creative Arts Therapy and incorporates art, drama, journaling, sand tray work and music in her work with students. As a member of the Deaf Community and also the hearing world, she models strategies for the students in developing their own identity as D/deaf people moving in and between two worlds.

Attachments

• Kelston Deaf Education Centre Abstract