Dr. Christine Yoshinaga-Itano is a Professor of Audiology in the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She received her Bachelors degree from the University of Southern California in Psychology, her Masters degree in Education of the Hearing Impaired and Ph.D. in Audiology and Hearing Impairment from Northwestern University. Dr. Yoshinaga-Itano is both a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing and an audiologist. She has conducted research in the areas of language, speech, and social-emotional development of deaf and hard-of-hearing infants and children for over thirty years. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Office of Education, Maternal and Child Health, the Center for Disease Control, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, the Colorado Department of Education, and the University of Colorado. Over the last 15-20 years, she has focused on the impact of early-identification and early intervention on the developmental outcomes of children with significant hearing loss. In 1996 she developed the Marion Downs National Center. Since 1996, Dr. Yoshinaga-Itano has assisted many state departments of education and public health agencies, schools for the deaf and blind, and early intervention programs throughout the United States and its territories. In addition, she has served as a consultant for many countries currently developing their early hearing detection and intervention programs, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, Korea, Belgium, Poland, Spain, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Thailand, Philippines, and South Africa.