VKC Lecture Recordings

Improving Early Language Intervention for Preschoolers with Emergent Developmental Language Disorder [2025]
Presenter: Pamela Hadley, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, Director, Applied Psycholinguistics Lab, Professor of Speech and Hearing Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Dr. Hadley will discuss the link between sentence variety and later developing grammatical structures and the importance of understanding sentence development when evaluating young children’s risk for DLD.

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.