Valerie James Abbott

Valerie James Abbott is an award-winning author, a parent champion for early hearing detection and intervention, and co-founder of the national pediatric Late Onset Hearing Loss Awareness Campaign. Her debut children’s book, Padapillo, was published in May 2021 and is based on the true story of how her family discovered and came to terms with her youngest child’s mysterious sensorineural hearing loss. She is a popular guest speaker at conferences and colleges, spotlighting facts and impacts of postnatal hearing loss on early childhood language and literacy, told through the lens of her family's journey. Valerie lives and works in Richmond, Virginia serving families of children with disabilities as an early intervention case manager.