2019 Forum
The Center for Children and Families presented our 10th annual forum on “A Communication Foundation: Building Blocks for Lifelong Literacy” on Friday, November 1st at the UT Dallas Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center. The Forum featured keynote speaker Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, distinguished professor of psychology at Temple University and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Dr. Hirsh-Pasek was the keynote speaker of the Center’s inaugural forum in 2010, where she presented on “The Arts and Sciences of Play,” outlining a mandate for playful-learning in preschool to groom intelligent, socially skilled, and creative thinkers. Since that time, Dr. Hirsh-Pasek’s research in the fields of language development and early literacy, early learning landscapes, and memory development has had a formidable impact. The focus of this forum was her notable contributions to understanding children’s verb learning, the study of language in everyday events in children’s successful language learning, the critical importance of parent-child “conversational duets,” and the role of early social interactions in learning language.
Forum support provided by: United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, Mutual of Omaha Bank, GoransonBain Ausley Family Law, The Jerry M. Lewis, MD, Mental Health Research Foundation.