Mary Pat Moeller, PhD

Audiologists worldwide will be able to view, free of charge, the 2010 Marion Downs Lecture in Pediatric Audiology as a live Web seminar through eAudiology, the American Academy of Audiology’s (AAA) professional development program, according to the AAA Foundation, Reston, Va.

This year, renowned hearing scientist, Mary Pat Moeller, PhD, director of the Center for Childhood Deafness at Boys Town National Research Hospital, will lecture on Optimizing Early Word Learning in Infants with Hearing Loss.

The presentation, to be held on April 16 from 10 am to 11:30 am PT at AudiologyNOW! in the San Diego Convention Center, will also be available on demand and at no charge until March 2011 through eAudiology.

For the past 5 years, the Marion Downs Lecture has featured presentations on the most current developments in pediatric hearing health care. Moeller’s presentation will examine factors that influence word learning in children with hearing loss. She will discuss how recent developmental research suggests that children develop “smarter” learning strategies as their vocabulary grows, and how these theories have interesting implications for outcome measurement. Her discussion will focus on lexical development in the key areas of vocal development, support for word learning, and access to word learning. She will also discuss ways in which individual differences in developmental transitions can guide clinical decision-making.

Moeller’s studies at Purdue University encompassed audiology, speech, hearing, and aural rehabilitation, and she subsequently earned a PhD in child language at the University of Nebraska. She is currently conducting a prospective longitudinal study of language development in infants with hearing loss, and she is coprincipal investigator of a multicenter study investigating outcomes of hard-of-hearing children. Moeller has published and lectured widely on language development in children with hearing loss.

Visit www.audiologyfoundation.org for more information on the lecture and other programs.

Registration for complimentary viewing of the live Web seminar is available on a first-come, first-served basis for the first 100 registrants; all others can view the on-demand Web presentation at eAudiology at no charge from April 20, 2010 through March 31, 2011. Those interested in viewing the Web seminar should visit www.eAudiology.org for more information.

The Oticon Foundation has underwritten this expanded Web offering. 

[Source: AAA]