2024 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference
March 17-19, 2024 • Denver, CO
THE ANTONIA BRANCIA MAXON AWARD FOR EHDI EXCELLENCE
Lisa Lopez
Lisa has dedicated over 40 years of her life to deaf education. She is a recognized leader in the field of deaf education 0-3, with an emphasis on listening and spoken language. She began as a classroom teacher in 1978 at Sunshine Cottage School for Deaf Children, San Antonio, Texas. Here she discovered her affinity for parents and began to understand their full importance in the life and future success of a child who is DHH. This was well before putting parents first became a recognized teaching practice. In 1987, Lisa became Director of the Parent Infant Program and continued to promote the idea that we should never underestimate the power of a parent. To that end, she undertook a Master's degree in counseling in order to better understand how to guide and coach parents. She then became the School Counselor at Sunshine Cottage, starting parent support groups to strengthen the family's belief that they are their child's first and most effective teacher. To this day she continues her counseling mission as an Adjunct Instructor of the Counseling Families with Children with Hearing Loss for the Deaf Education and Hearing Science Program at UT Health San Antonio.
Since returning as PIP Director in 2005, Lisa has worked tirelessly to empower parents , and to make EHDI 1-3-6 a reality for infants in her area of Texas. As soon as a baby is identified with hearing loss at our Newborn Hearing Evaluation Center or in the community ENTs offices, with parent consent, Lisa is on the phone coaching and guiding the families through the steps to get intervention and amplification, if so desired. Under her leadership, PIP has grown from 8 babies in 1987 to the 200 families we now serve each year. Loss to Follow-up is a chronic problem in our state and Lisa has been instrumental in locally combatting this. In 2018, the NECAP study showed that 62% of the babies in PIP had followed the 1-3-6 model compared to the national NECAP statistic of 55%.
She is a strong believer in assessment-based goals and has always strictly upheld six monthly language and developmental assessments for the babies in PIP. Lisa led us to then share these assessment results with national research bodies such as NECAP and now ODDACE. Her assessment commitment was heard at a state level at the discussions over HB 548 Language Acquisition for DHH Children 0-8 and in the suggestions for particular assessment inclusions. Under her leadership, PIP adopted the use of the Language Environment Analysis technology (LENA) when it was first introduced and in 2011 was presented with the LENA Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement from the LENA Foundation.
Since 1978, Lisa has been in the business of giving hope to families. For this reason, the Parent-Infant Advisors and Audiologists of Sunshine Cottage School for Deaf Children, respectfully submit this nomination of Lisa Lopez for the 2022 Antonia Brancia Maxon Award for EHDI Excellence.