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January 31, 2025 | 3:00 PM

2025 NEC Winter Seminar – January 31

Name: 2025 NEC Winter Seminar – January 31
Start: 2025-01-31T15:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-01-31T17:00:00-05:00
Location: Virtual

Foundational Knowledge in Deafblindness with Susan Bruce PhD.

You’re invited

2025 NEC Winter Seminar

Session 1

Dates: Friday, January 31, 2025
Time: 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm EST
Where: Virtual

Foundational Knowledge in Deafblindness with Dr. Susan Bruce

Dr. Susan Bruce’s prolific career has focused on how students with multiple disabilities-particularly those who are congenitally deafblind develop communication and language. Her action, descriptive, and intervention research has spanned assessment, communication intervention, literacy, rare syndromes, action research, and teacher preparation.

Seminar Overview

In order to help students learn, teachers and related service personnel should support students to build their knowledge by integrating new skills and concepts into their experiences and understanding. The fields of neuroscience, psychology, and education have demonstrated that information becomes a long-term memory after ample opportunity to practice using the information in expected as well as new situations. In this two-day seminar, Foundational Knowledge in Deafblindness, participants will learn strategies that emphasize the importance of consistent and deliberate teaching for deafblind learners.

Participants will build core knowledge in practical and proven educational strategies they can implement immediately with their students.
By the end of the two-day seminar, participants will develop an implementation plan that incorporates one or more strategies.
To extend learning beyond the seminar, participants will receive followup consultation, and/or access to a web source of high-quality practices and innovative examples.

Friday, January 31, 2025

3:00 PM – 5:00 PM EST Developing Communication Dictionaries and Holistic Communication Profiles

Workshop Part I
Participants will learn about how to develop receptive and expressive Communication
Dictionaries and the Holistic Communication Profile. Participants will understand the
importance of these individualized dictionaries to improve the responsiveness of
communication partners. They will also understand the role that the profile has in assessment and as a guide to instruction. Participants will be asked to begin the development of a specific dictionary and/or profile on one child or youth who is deafblind. Family engagement will be encouraged. Teams are welcome to attend this workshop session.

There are two sessions to our Winter Seminar this year. We invite you to learn more about our February 13th session.

Facilitator

Susan Bruce, Ph.D.

Susan Bruce, Ph.D.

Susan Bruce is an Professor of Special Education at Boston College. She directs the Masters Degree Program in Severe Disabilities with an optional specialization in deafblindness. She previously coordinated the Masters Degree Program in Visual Impairment at Michigan State University. Susan has more than 25 years experience teaching and consulting in schools and adult settings that serve individuals with severe and multiple disabilities (including deafness and visual impairment). Her expertise is particularly strong in the areas of assessment and communication intervention. Susan was certified to teach general education (K-8), and students with intellectual disabilities, visual impairment, and deafblindness. She has worked with families and educational professionals in Massachusetts, Michigan, Maine, New Hampshire, and Missouri to establish individually appropriate programming for children and young adults in placements along the continuum including partial and full inclusion settings.

Register today!

Questions?

If you have questions, or are unable to attend, but are interested in learning more, please contact Damary Lizardo. We’d love to hear from you!