escWorks

Payment by check may be sent in advance, paid on location, or received within 30 days of the event date. Instructions regarding where to send payment will be provided in your invoice/confirmation. If you are unable to supply a check or a PO number at the time of your registration, then you may simply enter "0000" and provide the number to us at a later time.

Presenters: Susan M. Bruce, Ph.D., Professor Emerita, Boston College

This session addresses how to support communication development in learners who are deafblind. Emphasis will be placed on the role of touch in relationships, learning, and communication. Participants will learn tactile strategies. They will also gain strategies to support learners to develop cognitive and social milestones associated with communication development.

Presenter: Presenters: Lacey Long, Ed.D., Research Associate, North Dakota Center for Persons with Disabilities

This session examines how AT can bridge access to communication, learning, mobility, and daily living when decisions are grounded in individualized assessment, systematic instruction, thoughtful configuration, and supported exploration. Participants will explore major categories of AT used by students who are deafblind and how these tools function together to support participation rather than operate as isolated solutions.

The session will also highlight key resources that support effective AT implementation and sustainability. Finally, the session will address common AT myths that contribute to access gaps and how to prevent or correct misconceptions at both local and systems levels. Emphasis will be placed on practical strategies that promote collaboration, reduce AT abandonment, and ensure students who are deafblind have consistent, equitable access over time.

Presenters: Erica Cairns, TSBVI Outreach Director; Julie Durando, Ed.D., Virginia Commonwealth University; Jacqueline Izaguirre, NFADB President; Bernadette van den Tillaart, Deafblind Education/EI Consultant, ODBES

Join leaders in deafblind education for a high-level overview of current systems, emerging initiatives, and critical priorities across Texas, the United States, and the global landscape. This general session explores how local practices intersect with national policy and international efforts to advance access, equity, and specialized support for individuals who are deafblind. Presenters will share regional updates, cross-system insights, and collaborative strategies shaping the future of the field across communities worldwide.

Presenters: Hoedenbeck Family, Denson Family, & Marraquin Family

Every family walking the path of raising a child who is deafblind brings a unique perspective, rich with shared experiences, creative problem-solving, and powerful insights. In this session, three families will share their personal stories and lived experiences. Our family presenters will reflect on the triumphs, day-to-day successes/challenges, and unexpected lessons learned along the way, while highlighting the strategies, adaptations, and community supports that have made a meaningful difference in their lives.

Presenters: Susan M. Bruce, Ph.D., Professor Emerita, Boston College

This session will begin by framing choice making as one of the components of self-determination. Participants will become familiar with some of the barriers to authentic choice making. They will also learn the necessary conditions to creating authentic choice making opportunities. Strategies for planning and implementation will be shared.

Presenter: Lacey Long, Ed.D., Research Associate, North Dakota Center for Persons with Disabilities

Participants will explore AT assessment and intervention through real-world examples, including a preschool student with CMV and CVI requiring AAC, an elementary-age student with lissencephaly focused on increasing communication, a transition-age youth with CHARGE Syndrome, and a college-bound student with Usher Syndrome. Each case will highlight how AT supports communication, sensory access, daily living skills, learning, and participation across environments.

Presenter: Katherine McLaughlin, M.Ed.

How to respond when a student who is deafblind engages in public masturbation, touches others without permission, or displays other unexpected sexual behaviors? For educators and families, these situations can be particularly challenging. Traditional strategies—like visual social stories and modeling—are often inaccessible, and limited opportunities for incidental learning leave staff reacting rather than teaching.

This interactive session moves from managing behaviors to understanding their root causes, including sensory needs, communication gaps, and curiosity. Through real-life scenarios and group discussion, participants will learn respectful in-the-moment responses and practical strategies to teach public vs. private behaviors, body awareness, boundaries, and healthy relationships.

Participants will leave with practical tools and greater confidence to support students’ dignity, safety, and healthy sexual development.

Presenters: Christopher Brum, Ph.D., Associate Professor, San Diego State University

This session examines how educators can develop materials and environments to support literacy, communication development, and engagement for learners who are deafblind. Participants explore the importance of assessment, knowledgeable and responsive communication partners, individualized instruction, and sustained opportunities for engagement. The session focuses on selecting, adapting, and personalizing books to address learners’ sensory, physical, communication, and cognitive needs. Participants also examine how environmental factors like lighting, noise, positioning, proximity, material access, predictability, and partner familiarity can either support or limit participation. Throughout, shared reading is presented as an interactive process in which adults and learners take turns, communicate, make meaning, connect stories to personal experiences, and build literacy and communication skills together.

Presenter: Bernadette van den Tillaart, DB Education/EI Consultant, ODBES

Every newborn relies on touch; bodily-tactile interaction feels natural for families. Caregivers gradually expect contact through vision and hearing. This bodily distance creates challenges for a deafblind child, who experiences the world mainly through touch. As cognitive development progresses, tactile movements become complex and carry deep mental meanings. However, hearing-sighted educators often miss these fleeting expressions. Interactions become non-reciprocal, obstructing tactile development, cognitive learning, and communication. To guide educators, the presenter developed the evidence-based Deafblind-Specific Video Interaction Program (DB-VIP). Research confirms this coaching method improves responses to tactile initiatives and fosters reciprocity. Analyzing videos enables educators to recognize a student’s potential for tactile cognition—a prerequisite for using tools like the Tactile Working Memory Scale.

Presenters: Megan Cote, M. Ed., Family and Network Engagement Specialist, National Center on Deafblindness

When a child is identified as deafblind, the experience impacts the entire family. Supporting the child within the context of their family can strengthen outcomes for everyone. This begins with open, intentional conversations that honor each family’s unique journey. By listening to family perspectives and understanding their needs, professionals can build authentic partnerships that center family voice as a driver of positive outcomes.

This session will introduce eight strategies for building genuine, strengths-based partnerships with families of children who are deafblind. Participants will explore how family-centered practices empower family members to grow as leaders, participate meaningfully in decisions about their child, and serve as valued members of the educational team.

Presenter: Hayley Broadway

Co-presence is a present, tactile, and naturally accessible lifestyle that opens up the world around 2 or more people with a constant flow of information about their environment, activities, and people around them. Through co-presence, one can confirm action is taking place, or the absence of it! Please join Hayley Broadway, DeafBlind Community Leader and Protactile Instructor, as she introduces the philosophy and strategies of co-presence, how it co-exists with any language or communication mode, and stories of DeafBlind individuals of all ages and abilities living their lives through co-presence. Note for virtual participants: To get the most out of this session, please secure a co-participant to sit with you throughout the session.

Presenters: Chris Russell, MS. Ed., TVI

Children and youth with congenital deafblindness often have complex care and communication needs including physical, multisensory and health challenges which can have a significant impact on their "availability for learning." This term is often used to describe general readiness or attention, but in fact it refers to the biobehavioral states of arousal that are necessary in order to neurologically take in and process information and experiences. A combination of internal and external influences may lead to difficulty in achieving or maintaining states of arousal conducive to learning for children with congenital deafblindness and complex care needs.

This session will cover biophysical and environmental factors affecting availability, approaches to biobehavioral assessment, and biophysical, communication and environmental interventions designed to promote and enhance a child’s individual availability for learning.

Presenter: Bernadette van den Tillaart, DB Education/EI Consultant, ODBES

Every newborn relies on touch; bodily-tactile interaction feels natural for families. Caregivers gradually expect contact through vision and hearing. This bodily distance creates challenges for a deafblind child, who experiences the world mainly through touch. As cognitive development progresses, tactile movements become complex and carry deep mental meanings. However, hearing-sighted educators often miss these fleeting expressions. Interactions become non-reciprocal, obstructing tactile development, cognitive learning, and communication. To guide educators, the presenter developed the evidence-based Deafblind-Specific Video Interaction Program (DB-VIP). Research confirms this coaching method improves responses to tactile initiatives and fosters reciprocity. Analyzing videos enables educators to recognize a student’s potential for tactile cognition—a prerequisite for using tools like the Tactile Working Memory Scale.

Presenters: Megan Cote, M. Ed., Family and Network Engagement Specialist, National Center on Deafblindness

When a child is identified as deafblind, the experience impacts the entire family. Supporting the child within the context of their family can strengthen outcomes for everyone. This begins with open, intentional conversations that honor each family’s unique journey. By listening to family perspectives and understanding their needs, professionals can build authentic partnerships that center family voice as a driver of positive outcomes.

This session will introduce eight strategies for building genuine, strengths-based partnerships with families of children who are deafblind. Participants will explore how family-centered practices empower family members to grow as leaders, participate meaningfully in decisions about their child, and serve as valued members of the educational team.

Presenter: Hayley Broadway

Co-presence is a present, tactile, and naturally accessible lifestyle that opens up the world around 2 or more people with a constant flow of information about their environment, activities, and people around them. Through co-presence, one can confirm action is taking place, or the absence of it! Please join Hayley Broadway, DeafBlind Community Leader and Protactile Instructor, as she introduces the philosophy and strategies of co-presence, how it co-exists with any language or communication mode, and stories of DeafBlind individuals of all ages and abilities living their lives through co-presence. Note for virtual participants: To get the most out of this session, please secure a co-participant to sit with you throughout the session.

Presenters: Chris Russell, MS. Ed., TVI

Children and youth with congenital deafblindness often have complex care and communication needs including physical, multisensory and health challenges which can have a significant impact on their "availability for learning." This term is often used to describe general readiness or attention, but in fact it refers to the biobehavioral states of arousal that are necessary in order to neurologically take in and process information and experiences. A combination of internal and external influences may lead to difficulty in achieving or maintaining states of arousal conducive to learning for children with congenital deafblindness and complex care needs.

This session will cover biophysical and environmental factors affecting availability, approaches to biobehavioral assessment, and biophysical, communication and environmental interventions designed to promote and enhance a child’s individual availability for learning.

Presenters: Fabiola Spinks, Hayley Broadway, Denson Family, Heather Lightfoot

Two families gather in a protactile space with co-facilitators Hayley Broadway and Heather “Hex” Lightfoot. In this bubble, we connect through our hands and knees as we share our experiences with protactile at home.

Presenters: Dr. Sanjay Gulati and Rachel St. John, MD, NCC

This session is meant to summarize some of the key clinical topics that have come up in two medical provider’s experiences in working with DeafBlind individuals and their families. Real-world case examples will be provided to help illustrate key topics and issues. Prevalence statistics will be covered, as well as the impact of diagnostic overshadowing on medical decision making, with discussion of the frequent context of medical complexity. Language considerations will be discussed, particularly support for multi-modal consideration while keeping focus on individual access needs. Finally, the critical need for multi/interdisciplinary collaboration will be explored as a way to optimize outcomes for patients and their families.