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Participant Biographies
Name: Linda Lyle Comments: Hi, I'm Linda Lyle from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I work for New Mexico's school for the blind and, in addition, I have worked as a consultant to New Mexico's Deaf/Blind Project for several years. I will be a part of the support team for the course. I am passionate about children (and adults) and about the ways that they learn. I am excited about the start-up of this course; I anticipate learning new ways to think about children with deaf/blindness; new strategies that you have found in your practices that can make a difference for children and families; new pieces of knowledge that comes from excited, passionate people putting their heads together. I can't wait to get started! Martha Vetomveto@scsdb.k12.sc.us Comments: Hi, I'm Martha. I live in Florence, South Carolina and I work for the SC School for the Deaf and the Blind in the department of Vision Outreach Services. I provide VI and O&M services in small, rural districts in eastern South Carolina. I've been teaching visually impaired students for over 20 years in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and SC. Since February, I've also been managing our state's Deaf-Blind Project; mainly coordinating educational reviews of students' classroom or home-based services, and setting up trainings. I'm looking forward to learning from everyone else in these discussions, and am especially interested in expanding my understanding of the hearing loss aspects of the case studies, since I've been focused on vision for so long. My husband is headmaster of an independent school and we have 2 children. My son is a senior in high school, and my daughter is spending her junior year of college in France - leaving in a couple of weeks. ----------------------------------------------------------- Linda Harris Comments: Hi! My name is Linda Harris. I live in Spartanburg, SC. I am a speech-language pathologist at the SC School for the Deaf and Blind. I have been working in this setting for a little over 5 years. I have approximately 5 or 6 students on my caseload who are labeled as deaf-blind. I am interested in learning techniques to better meet the needs of these students. I have recently completed my doctoral degree. Personally, I am married. I have an 18 month old daughter and a son on the way. ----------------------------------------------------------- Kim Puckett Comments: Hi. My name is Kim Puckett and I live in Portland, Oregon. I work for the Columbia Regional Program as a Hearing Specialist for ages 0-5 doing mostly home visits and some preschool consultation. Starting this school year I will also be the Deaf/Blind Consulting Teacher for birth-21 in our program through the Oregon D/B Project. Anything over Kindergarten age is new to me so I want to learn what I can from all of you. Why did I become a teacher? Wow, that's always a loaded question for me. I was raised by my grandparents and they were both special ed teachers. I swore the one thing I would NEVER do is become a teacher. I loved sign language and was interested in becoming an interpreter but was having a difficult time becoming confident using sign. Then I saw a postcard on a bulletin board for "Early Intervention of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Infants" with an address to send for information. The information/application packet came the same week that my grandmother passed away. The deadline for application was a week away so I had to fill out the paperwork pretty quickly without a lot of thought about if this is what I really wanted to do. I sent it in, got accepted, graduated from the program a year later and here I am. I never planned to be here but I love it. I love working with families and I love the variety of not being in a classroom from 8-4 every day. Troubleshooting and creating communication options for multiple handicapped is one of the favorite parts of my job. In my personal life, I am married and have a 16 year old stepson who also has special needs. My husband recently bought a Harley after finally realizing he wasn't going to fix the one that's been in pieces since I met him in '97. Never thought I'd say this but I love riding! I am going to learn how to ride a motorcycle in September. Scared? Yes, very, but excited. Enought rambling I suppose. I look forward to getting to know each of you over the next couple of months. ------------------------------------------------------------ Michelle J. Storm Comments: I live in McKinley county in a beautiful secluded setting, so secluded that I don't have DSL so hopefully this works :-) I am an Occupational Therapist who started her own company last August called Kids Unlimited. I currently have several contracts, with my main one being a provider for the NM DD Waiver program. In addition I see children in EI. I started out as an OT in EI in ohio, and then moved over to school based therapy, and have done so for the last six years until resigning from the Gallup McKinley School District last year. I am from northeast PA, I am a later in life college student, and graduated from University of Pittsburgh in 1998. I live alone here in NM with 6 dogs and 2 cat's. I unfortunately live in an area where people dump their unwanted dogs, and I am a huge animal lover and have a big heart. I think six is the max however, dog food is expensive and to think i moved here from ohio with one 10 year old dog and 2 cats. Previously to living here in the 4 corners area I lived in Roswell and worked for their school district. I love school based therapy, just got tired of only being able to provide service 1 x/week and it felt like token only, I saw very limited progress. Now that I am on my own I see great progress with my clients, it is all community based and I see most of my clients 1 x/week, and work with the families which allows much more carry through, as a big part of my job is education. In addition to DD and EI clients, I also do home health and work at a nursing home. My hobbies are knitting, quilting, sewing and fabric and yarn! I also love reading and learning. I am taking my second Master's level course at UNM-Gallup this fall-Cognitive Neuroscience, as my second professional interest is Neuropsychology, although I don't want to be a doctor. I am hoping to learn how to be a better therapist to my clients through this course. ----------------------------------------------------------- Deb English Comments: Hello! My name is Deb English, I am a Deaf/Blind intervener working at the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Indianapolis where I live. My three children are grown, so at the age of 48 after I recovered from cancer surgery and deciding the "one thing" I had always wanted to do, I entered college to get a degree in American Sign Language. While I was working toward the completion of my degree with 4 hours of Deaf community contact per week, I was introduced to a lovely Deaf/Blind woman, and I knew I wanted to work with people who are Deaf/Blind. I feel very blessed to have worked with my student for the past two years. Begining to learn signing at such an "old age" has provided many humorous moments. I think my student and I have such a great relationship because we both are able to see the humor in most situations. We are currently learning Braille together which is fun for both of us, and a wonderful bonding experience. ------------------------------------------------------------ Rose Hessmiller Comments: Hello, I have a PhD in Special Education and Organizational Learning and Educational Technologies with a concentration in Information Technology at the University of New Mexico. I am dedicated to helping build information bridges within the disability communication. We have much to learn from and share with one another. My hope is to help create easy to use communication systems to support a learning/sharing environment. ------------------------------------------------------------ Marty Elquist Comments: I am a native Nevadan and have lived in Reno for the last 15 years. I recently married last year and do not have children, but hope to have them in the future. I have been the project coordinator for the Nevada Dual Sensory Impairment Project for the last 6 years. My responsibilities have largely been evaluation and organization of the project. I hope to gain more insight on assessing individuals with dual sensory impairments and how to recommend appropriate child-specific practices. Thanks for holding this course on the web! |
