Oberkotter Foundation Welcomes New Trustee

PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 21, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Oberkotter Foundation is pleased to announce the addition of a new trustee, Lydia Denworth, beginning in the new year.

The Oberkotter Foundation focuses its efforts on helping families ensure their children who are deaf or hard of hearing have opportunities to reach their full potential through listening and spoken language. Lydia will be joining the Foundation's current trustees, Mildred L. Oberkotter, M.S.W., David A. Pierson, Ph.D. and Bruce A. Rosenfield, J.D.

As a mother of three sons, one of whom is who is deaf, Lydia brings her experience following a listening and spoken language (LSL) journey for her family. Her son Alex, who uses a cochlear implant and a hearing aid, is a high school senior with a passion for basketball and plans to play in college next year. Additionally, Lydia is an acclaimed science journalist and will bring her own passion for inquiry around the issues that matter to families and communities to the work of the Foundation.

"As we position ourselves to redefine hearing loss for the next generation, we could not be more excited to welcome Lydia's perspective as a parent who has raised a child with hearing loss to listen and talk," said Bruce Rosenfield, Trustee and Executive Director of the Oberkotter Foundation. "The combination of her experience as a parent along with her leadership, expertise and insight will strengthen and position the Foundation as we plan for the future."

Lydia is a contributing editor at Scientific American, with work having also appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Time, and many other publications. She is the author of several books of popular science. The most recent, Friendship: The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life's Fundamental Bond, won a Nautilus Book Awards Gold Medal and was named one of the best leadership books of 2020 by Adam Grant. Lydia's book, I Can Hear You Whisper: An Intimate Journey through the Science of Sound and Language, weaves together memoir, science and history to recount her exploration of hearing, language and Deaf culture after she discovered that the youngest of her three sons couldn't hear. The book was called "luminous" and "indispensable" by Publishers Weekly, and "enthralling" by The New York Review of Books.

Lydia is also the co-author, with Dr. Dana Suskind, of the forthcoming, Parent Nation: Unlocking Every Child's Potential, Fulfilling Society's Promise, which combines the latest science on the developing brain with stories of families from all walks of life to show that the prescription for a prosperous and equitable future is more robust support for parents during the most critical years of their children's development.

Lydia has also been deeply engaged in civic life. She is a former trustee and chair of the board of the Berkley Carroll School in Brooklyn New York; a former president of the Park Slope Civic Council, a neighborhood advocacy group in Brooklyn; and a former trustee of Oliver Scholars, which prepares high-achieving Black and Latino students from underserved New York City communities for success at top independent schools and prestigious colleges.

ABOUT THE OBERKOTTER FOUNDATION
The Oberkotter Foundation believes all children who are deaf or hard of hearing should have the opportunity to reach their full potential. In pursuit of that goal, the Foundation has worked for more than 35 years to support families who have chosen listening and spoken language (LSL) for their child — and to support opportunities for children to develop listening and spoken language along with social, emotional, literacy and academic skills.

Together with its subsidiary Hearing First, the Foundation is currently focused on supporting access to coordinated pediatric audiology and LSL intervention for families of infants and toddlers with a focus on cost-effective delivery models and projects that reduce barriers for families in accessing critical services for their children who are deaf or hard of hearing.

SOURCE Oberkotter Foundation