The Understanding Early Literacy conference is set for Sept. 23 in Oxford, Mississippi. Please see the link for registration.
See info below on conference guest speakers:
Dr. Nadine Gaab
Dr. Nadine Gaab is an Associate Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Nadine’s work focuses on developmental cognitive neuroscience, particularly in language-based learning disabilities. Her research in the GaabLab examines the development of typical and atypical language and literacy skills in the pediatric brain and pre-markers of learning disabilities and the development of screening tools for screening literacy milestones and dyslexia.
She is the 2019 recipient of the LDA Award (Learning Disabilities Association America) for her work on learning disabilities. In 2018, Nadine was presented with the Allan C. Crocker Award for her advocacy on behalf of children with dyslexia and reading disabilities and efforts around the recent passage of the Massachusetts screening legislation (under the guidance of Decoding Dyslexia MA). She has also been recognized by the International Dyslexia Association in her receipt of the Norman Geschwind Memorial lecture 2020 and the Alice H. Garside Award for outstanding leadership in advancing the science and advocacy of dyslexia. She is an international speaker, frequently presenting to teachers on the brain science of typical and atypical literacy development.
Dr. Eric Tridas
Dr. Eric Tridas is a developmental & behavioral pediatrician. For 37 years he directed The Tridas Center for Child Development in Tampa, Florida. During that time, he also served as Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine. He is currently an International Dyslexia Association (IDA) representative to the National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities (NJCLD), a member of the Professional Advisory Board of the Learning Disability Association of America (LDA) and an Associate member for the Advisory Committee on Exceptional Children and Youth for the Office of Oversea Schools, United States Department of State. He is also the State Medical Director for Pediatric Health Choice of Florida-Prescribed Pediatric Extended Care Facilities (PPEC).
Dr. Tridas served as President of IDA from January 2014 through October 2016. He is the Chair of the IDA Assessment Guidelines Subcommittee of IDA and a member of the LD Assessment Standards workgroup of LDA. Dr. Tridas is coauthor of the Learning Disability Chapter of the fifth edition of the Textbook of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics and the book Assessing Dyslexia: A Teacher’s Guide to Understanding and Evaluating Their Pupils’ Needs. He also edited and co-authored From ABC to ADHD: What Every Parent Should Know About Dyslexia and Attention Problems.
Dr. Tridas is a graduate of the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine. He completed his pediatric residency at the Children’s Hospital of Buffalo and a fellowship in Ambulatory Pediatrics with emphasis in child development at Boston Children’s Hospital where he served as a Harvard Teaching Fellow.
Dr. Tim Oddegard
Tim Odegard, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology and holds the Katherine Davis Murfree Chair of Excellence in Dyslexic Studies at Middle Tennessee State University, leading the efforts of the Tennessee Center for the Study and Treatment of Dyslexia. Previously, he held faculty appointments with the University of Texas Arlington in Psychology, the University of Texas Dallas in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas in Radiology and Psychiatry. He joined the MTSU faculty after serving as Director of Research and Evaluation for Wilson Language Training Corporation.
He is a Developmental Cognitive Psychologist whose research focuses on memory and language. To date, he has published over 60 research articles and book chapters. His research has incorporated experimental methods, neuroimaging, and other approaches to understanding memory and language development. His research in reading characterizes the incidence and identification rates of different reading difficulties in school-age children. Also, he studies optimal conditions to support the implementation of literacy instruction for the betterment of all students in the primary grades and beyond. In addition to being a research scientist, Tim is a reading therapist. He completed a two-year dyslexia specialist training program at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas during his NIH-funded National Research Service Award.
Tim has committed himself to a life of service to improve educational opportunities for students in literacy. Currently, Tim serves as the editor-in-chief of the Annals of Dyslexia and as a consulting editor for the Journal of Learning Disabilities. He is a past board member and VP of the Academic Language Therapy Association (ALTA). He is a past Vice President of the Texas Dyslexia Licensure Advisory Committee. Tim has served as a member of the International Dyslexia Association’s (IDA) Educational Training Initiative and an editor for Perspectives on Language and Literacy. He has also served as a member of the Understood parent advisory committee and the AIM research advisory board. He received the Innovator Award as an Outstanding MSLE Professional from the International Multisensory Structured Language Education Council, the Luke Waits Service Award from ALTA, the Massey-Sexton Dyslexia Advocacy Award from the Tennessee Branch IDA, the Roland H. Waters Teaching Award from the University of Arkansas, and the Research Excellence Award from the University of Texas, Arlington.
Tim has extensive experience directly working with and supporting public schools’ efforts at multiple levels. For example, he chaired the foundational literacy skills working group for the Haskins Global Literacy Hub Policy Summit, served as a technical consultant for a review of kindergarten (K) to second-grade core curriculum and intervention in Arkansas, and served as a consultant for Kentucky’s foundational literacy skills and reading disabilities work. Dr. Odegard is also a contributing author to the IDA knowledge and practice standards.