VKC Lecture Recordings

VKC 60th Anniversary Celebration: Honoring the Past, Celebrating the Future [2025]
Guest Speakers: Jeff Neul, M.D., Ph.D.; Elisabeth Dykens, Ph.D.; Pat Levitt, Ph.D.; Len Abbeduto, Ph.D.; Karoly Mirnics, M.D., Ph.D.; Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele, M.D.; Meghan Burke, Ph.D.; Carol Westlake; Stephen Camarata, Ph.D. (moderator); and Evon Batey Lee, Ph.D. (moderator)
The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development was founded on May 29, 1965. To honor its legacy, VKC directors, friends, and colleagues past and present, discussed their experiences at the Center, how the VKC has impacted their careers, and why IDDRC, UCEDD, and LEND programs are vital to the advancement of IDD research.

The Path Forward: Insights from the Tennessee DD Network Needs Assessment Survey [2025]
Presenters: Pablo Juárez, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA; Julie Lounds Taylor, Ph.D.; Lauren Pearcy; and Emily Lanchak, M.Ed.
Join us for a conversation about the findings from a recent statewide needs assessment conducted by the Tennessee Developmental Disabilities Network. Whether you’re a person with a disability, a family member, provider, or policymaker, this session will offer a clearer picture of what needs exist in our state and how we can work together to strengthen supports and drive systemwide improvements for Tennesseans with disabilities.

What is Project ECHO and How Could It Be Useful to Me? [2025]
Presenters: Beth Malow, M.D., M.S., and Janet Shouse
This presentation offers an overview of an educational model called Project ECHO, which stands for Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes. Project ECHO programs create a community of practice that usually focuses on health care clinicians, but can include teachers, family members or therapists. The ECHO model has a “hub team” of experienced clinicians and individuals and “spokes” who are learners, with learners presenting cases and receiving recommendations during a series of sessions via Zoom. The idea of “all teach, all learn” fuels more than 7,400 ECHO programs worldwide.

Neuronal Recruitment in the Temporal Lobes of Young Children [2025]
Presenter: Shawn F. Sorrells, Ph.D.
Brain development continues in the human infant in significant ways. A large stream of migratory interneurons continues to arrive into the entorhinal cortex throughout infancy and into toddlerhood. The late arrival and maturation of these neurons may be important for plasticity of memory.

Multidisciplinary Approaches for Challenging Behavior [2025]
Presenter: Matthew Siegel, M.D., MBA
Dr. Siegel built an internationally recognized continuum of care, teaching, and research to address the behavioral health of youth with autism and other developmental disabilities in Maine. His research and clinical work have focused on better understanding the phenotypic profiles and clinical needs of youth with profound autism, intense behavior, and co-occurring psychiatric disorders.

Educate to Advocate Public Policy Workshop [2025]
Topics/Presenters:
How Policy Works: Zoë Jamail, Disability Rights Tennessee
Hot Topics in Disability Policy: Emma Shouse, Tennessee Council on Developmental Disabilities
The Collective Efforts of Advocacy: Panel discussion with Jeff Strand, Tennessee Disability Coalition; Shannikka Sherrill, parent; Robbie Faulkner, The Arc Tennessee; and John Staubitz, VKC TRIAD

Exploring Autism Traits and Addressing their Challenges and Strengths: Excerpts from Research in India and the USA [2024]
Presenter: Santoshi Halder, Ph.D.
The prevalence of Autism across the globe is extremely high and unprecedentedly increasing all over the world over the years. The presenter will share excerpts from her research findings conducted in India and the USA from diverse two countries adding valuable information to the global body of literature and knowledge for understanding Autistic traits, strengths, and challenges.

Story of (My) Life: Whatever (Brain) Works [2024]
Presenter: Suzana Herculano-Houzel, Ph.D.
This talk proposes a radically different, optimistic, and inclusive view that celebrates diversity, based on the speaker’s research and her life experience as an autistic person.

Art and Science to Enhance Social Competence for Children and Adults with Autism [2024]
Presenter: Blythe Corbett, Ph.D.
Children with autism spectrum disorders can experience diverse challenges in areas of social competence including social cognition, communication and interaction. Dr. Corbett will talk about how blending the innovation of art and rigor of science can make a positive and meaningful impact on how we interact with the social world.

Visual Perception in Autism: Circuit-Level to Real-World Insights [2024]
Presenter: Caroline Robertson, Ph.D.
Differences in sensory processing are near-universal among individuals with autism, suggesting that both social and sensory traits are core characteristics of the condition. Yet, beyond questionnaire-based evidence that social and sensory traits are correlated, little is known about their causal connection. This talk will present psychophysical, neuroimaging, and naturalistic studies of visual perception in autism.

Translation of Disease-Targeted Therapies in Neurodevelopmental Disorders [2024]
Presenter: Elizabeth Berry-Kravis, M.D., Ph.D.
This lecture will discuss efforts in specific conditions to translate treatments from animal models including development of outcome measures and biomarkers as well as novel trial designs needed to bridge the translational chasm to bring this class of new treatments to humans with NDDs.

Promoting Positive Outcomes in Children and Youth with Autism by Tackling Heterogeneity [2024]
Presenter: Shuting Zheng, Ph.D.
Heterogeneity is a hallmark of autism in that children and youth with autism present with a wide range of abilities and challenges. Such variability poses clear challenges to measuring symptoms and strengths precisely and to tailoring supports and services effectively for those impacted by autism.

Getting Started: Imaging the Minds and Brains of Human Infants [2024]
Presenter: Rebecca Saxe, Ph.D.
In this talk, Dr. Saxe will start with a surprising discovery from human infant neuroimaging: the functions of cortical regions are quite similar, between infants and adults. Indeed, as the methods in our field improve, some initial differences have disappeared, turning into similarities.

Educate to Advocate Public Policy Workshop [October 2023]
Topics/Presenters:
How Policy Works: Robyn Lampley, The Arc Tennessee
Hot Topics in Disability Policy: Jeff Strand, Tennessee Disability Coalition
The Impact of Advocacy: Panel discussion with disability advocates Michelle Gross, Tatum Gross, and Pisanach (Peach) Chinratanalab

Advocating for Supports to Improve Service Transition for Autistic Young Adults [October 2023]
Presenters: Julie Lounds Taylor, Ph.D. and Meghan Burke, Ph.D., BCBA-D
It can be difficult for youth on the autism spectrum to get the services they need after they leave high school. Join us as we talk with two researchers who developed a 12-week advocacy training program to help parents and caregivers learn how to best advocate for services for their young adult on the autism spectrum.

Weeding Out the Bad from the Good: Strategies for Researchers Preventing and Identifying Invalid Online Survey Responses [September 2023]
Presenters: Rachel Schles, Ph.D. and Caroline Deheck
With the explosion of AI and machine language learning & modeling in the last few years, online surveys are seeing an increase in invalid, fraudulent, and/or bot responses mixed in with valid human responses. This session provides an overview of identifying and preventing invalid survey responses, including examples from the presenters’ experiences and the results from a recent survey of researchers conducting online surveys. The focus of the presentation will be discussing proactive strategies for invalid survey response management, including specific REDCap settings.

Design and Development of VR HMDs With/For Autistic Groups [September 2023]
Presenter: Nigel Newbutt, Ph.D.
In this talk, Dr. Newbutt will cover a brief history and contextual overview of virtual reality used with, by and for autistic groups. He will also discuss results from his research that has worked centrally with autistic groups to explore their sensory and visual experiences of head-mounted displays. Finally, his talk will provide examples of how his fundamental research has led to working with autistic groups in order to better understand their preferences and ways this has articulated into practical and applied VR examples. Dr. Newbutt will conclude with thoughts and reflections on the need for greater inclusion of autistic groups in our research.

Community Engagement and Collaboration in Research Development and Implementation [May 2023]
Presenters: Beth Malow, M.D., M.S.; Jessica Schwartzman, Ph.D.; Alexandra Jacobs; Nicole Noblet; and Sarika Peters, Ph.D. (Moderator)
This panel discussion will focus on what “Nothing About Us Without Us” can look like within a research setting. How can community involvement -- namely, participation of disability self-advocates and their family members -- be incorporated in the planning stages of clinical research and/or intervention? What might some challenges be? What are some of the advantages?

Empathy and Morality Should Not Be Conflated [May 2023]
Presenter: Jean Decety, Ph.D.
Empathy provides information for moral decision-making. However, empathy is limited and fragile, thus not always a reliable source of information in moral decision-making. This conference integrates theory and empirical knowledge from evolutionary theory, neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics to demonstrate how various social and situational factors unconsciously and rapidly modulate empathy. Decision-making guided by empathy alone is not optimal when dealing with large groups, people from our tribe, or anonymous persons.

The Healthcare Transition for Youth with ASD [April 2023]
Presenter: Lisa A. Croen, Ph.D.
In this talk, Dr. Croen will discuss her research on the health status and health care utilization among transition-age autistic youth. Results from electronic medical records-based analyses, healthcare provider surveys, and qualitative interviews with patients and caregivers will be presented.

Anxiety in Autism Spectrum Disorder [April 2023]
Presenter: Trenesha Hill, Ph.D.
This talk will discuss what we currently know about anxiety in autism; why it’s important to study; and a proposed study to identify the neurobiological mechanisms of anxiety in autism.

Mental Health in Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities [March 2023]
Presenters: Jessica Schwartzman, Ph.D.; Verity Rodrigues, M.S., Ph.D.; and Autumn Kujawa, Ph.D.
Join us for an online community discussion with VKC researchers on the topic of mental health and intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), touching on themes such as increased stigma, accessibility and affordability of supports and treatment options, and more.