Sally E. Shaywitz’s research while affiliated with Yale University and other places

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Publications (224)


School-Based Interventions for Dyslexic Readers During Elementary Grades Do Not Improve Reading as Adults
  • Article
  • Publisher preview available

May 2025

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58 Reads

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Jessica R. Toste

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Sally E. Shaywitz

For decades, dyslexia interventions within the school setting are typically delivered at a low dosage, raising concerns that these interventions are not intensive enough to sustain long-term reading outcomes. We sought to investigate the impact of such interventions delivered in one state using data from the Connecticut Longitudinal Study. This unique study sample included both typically reading (n = 246) and dyslexic (n = 66) children beginning at age 5 who have been followed continuously and noninterruptedly through their current age of 45 years. Our findings indicate that the school-based interventions examined in our data did not lead to sustained outcomes for dyslexic readers. Findings suggest that participation in these interventions did not lead to improved outcomes for dyslexic readers in adulthood and may even have a detrimental effect on reading comprehension as adults. If students with dyslexia are to improve their reading, schools must adopt and use evidence-based interventions when reading difficulties are identified in the primary grades. Our findings provide strong empirical support for the need for more intensive and comprehensive interventions for students with dyslexia.

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Testing Results.
Prevalence of undiagnosed dyslexia in African-American primary school children

December 2023

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153 Reads

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3 Citations

npj Science of Learning

Dyslexia is among the most common neurodevelopmental disorders in children, yet despite its high prevalence all too frequently goes undiagnosed. Consequently dyslexic children all too often fail to receive effective reading interventions. Here we report our findings from a study using a teacher completed evidence-based dyslexia screener to first screen then test predominantly African-American children in grades kindergarten through second grade in two inner city public charter schools in New Orleans. Almost half (49.2%) of the children screened as at risk for dyslexia and of these the majority were found to be dyslexic on more detailed testing. Our results suggest that large numbers of African-American students with dyslexia may be overlooked in schools.


Parameter estimates predicting ART-2 from WJ reading in grades 1-5.
Descriptive Statistics.
Early reading at first grade predicts adult reading at age 42 in typical and dyslexic readers

November 2023

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90 Reads

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6 Citations

npj Science of Learning

Research indicates that the achievement gap in reading between typical and dyslexic readers is already evident in first grade and persists through adolescence. However, it is not known whether this reading gap persists into adult life. In this report we use an epidemiologic sample of 312 children (typical readers = 246; dyslexic readers = 66), followed longitudinally from age 5 through adulthood and examine two fundamental questions: 1) Is reading level in 1 st grade predictive of reading proficiency in adulthood in typical and dyslexic readers? and 2) Are the trajectories of reading development from 1 st through 5 th grade predictive of reading proficiency in adulthood in typical and dyslexic readers? Our findings indicate that early reading levels in 1 st grade as well as the trajectory of reading development through the first five years of school were associated with reading scores in adulthood. This association was stronger for dyslexic than for typical readers, especially the latter factor. These findings indicate that the achievement gap between typical and dyslexic readers persists far beyond adolescence, in fact, into adult life.


Reversing Downstream Consequences of School Hiatus on Reading in Disadvantaged, At-Risk Children

February 2022

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144 Reads

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1 Citation

The spread of COVID-19 has led to the disruption of K-12 education for about 90% of the world’s student population. The effects on children’s academic development are unknown. We examined how disruption in schooling over three consecutive summers in disadvantaged minority children affects reading and whether an intensive intervention can ameliorate these effects. Our data were collected prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. We applied Latent Change Score models to examine developmental trends in a longitudinal study of reading in 111 economically disadvantaged children, assessed biannually from grades 1 to 4, including 3 summers (for a total of 6 months of school hiatus). The students fell behind the normative population in their ability to understand written texts, a decrease in their relative percentile of 0.25 of a standard deviation each summer, and an effect 3–4 times greater than prior studies suggested. Compared to children in a comparison group, children who received an evidence-based intervention during the school year were better able to maintain their reading scores. These findings provide evidence that disruptions in schooling, for example, those implemented to slow the spread of COVID-19, may have a significant detrimental effect on the reading abilities of disadvantaged children and that children who received a reading intervention were better able to maintain their reading scores during the hiatus. It is critical that policy makers prioritize the allocation of necessary resources to minimize the negative effects on reading this pandemic has wrought on these most disadvantaged children.


Repeated-measures analysis of variance
At-risk classification summary statistics for family history alone, screener alone, and their combination in kindergarten and grade 1
Family History Is Not Useful in Screening Children for Dyslexia

October 2021

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321 Reads

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6 Citations

Statement of Relevance Accurate early screening is important for providing effective early intervention for dyslexic readers. It is in these early years of school that the slope for reading acquisition is greatest, only to plateau at a much slower rate as the child goes on in school. Some have suggested using family history as a proxy for identification of dyslexia. However, the classification accuracy of family history as a screening measure for dyslexia is unknown. Here, we show that using family history as a proxy for dyslexia is unwarranted. Using an epidemiologic sample of 398 children followed from age 5 through adulthood, we found that sensitivity of family history for predicting dyslexia was unacceptably low for all family member groups. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves for family history alone, an evidence-based early screening measure alone, and the combination of screener and family history indicate that the evidence-based screener yields the best results for predicting at-risk for dyslexia while the addition of family history does not improve the value of using the screener alone. These findings indicate that family history is not effective as a screening measure for dyslexia and that family history does not improve the classification accuracy provided by an evidence-based early screening measure.


Dyslexia in the 21st century

December 2020

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1,249 Reads

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58 Citations

Current Opinion in Psychiatry

Purpose of review: Within the past decade tremendous advances have occurred in our understanding of dyslexia. Recent findings: Reliable data now validate the definition of dyslexia as an unexpected difficulty in reading in an individual who has the ability to be a much better reader. That dyslexia is unexpected is now codified in US federal law (PL 115-391). Replicated studies using functional brain imaging have documented a neural signature for dyslexia. Epidemiologic, longitudinal data now demonstrate that dyslexia is highly prevalent, affecting 20% of the population, affecting boys and girls equally. These data further demonstrate that the achievement gap between dyslexic and typical readers is now evident as early as first grade and persists. Evidence-based, efficient, inexpensive screening tools now offer the possibility of universal screening to identify children at risk for dyslexia as early as first grade. Specialized schools which focus on dyslexic students provide welcoming communities, ensuring that dyslexic children will not only survive but thrive. Summary: Taken together, these findings indicate that we must act and act now to ensure that this 21st century knowledge of dyslexia is disseminated to educators, policy makers, and most of all to parents of dyslexic children.



Citations (77)


... Reading difficulties are the most common neurobehavioral disorders in children (S. Shaywitz & Shaywitz, 2020), and evidence from a number of lines of investigation indicates that dyslexia is the most welldefined reading disability affecting as many as 20% of children (Ferrer et al., 2010(Ferrer et al., , 2015(Ferrer et al., , 2023 and in certain populations perhaps as high as 50% (Cassidy et al., 2023). Children with dyslexia are eligible to receive school-based intervention supports, as indicated by federal special education protections or state-specific dyslexia legislation (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 2004; State of Connecticut, 2021; U.S. Department of Education, 2015). ...

Reference:

School-Based Interventions for Dyslexic Readers During Elementary Grades Do Not Improve Reading as Adults
Prevalence of undiagnosed dyslexia in African-American primary school children

npj Science of Learning

... Brown et al. (2022) and García and Pérez (2023) highlight that children with advanced reading levels in the first grade are more likely to succeed in later educational stages. Additional UK studies confirm the importance of acquiring early reading skills and timely detecting difficulties in this area (Smith et al., 2021;Double et al., 2019;Ferrer et al., 2023). The Table 1 Theory of action of the "Leo Primero" Plan. ...

Early reading at first grade predicts adult reading at age 42 in typical and dyslexic readers

npj Science of Learning

... 2 certified by peer review) Sex differences in the brain are pervasive as demonstrated by differences in a wide range of processes including pain [1], learning and memory [2] and language [3]. Notably, there are robust sex differences in the prevalence, age of onset, and course of various psychiatric disorders. ...

Sex differences in the functional organization of the brain for language
  • Citing Chapter
  • October 2007

... Explanatory criteria verify underlying weaknesses pointing toward a dyslexia phenotype. They comprise (1) necessary criterion reading disorder: performance in two domains (word reading, nonword reading, or spelling) at the lowest 6.7% (5.7 to 10%); (2) explanatory criterion on neuro-cognitive abilities: problems in phoneme processing, specifically phoneme awareness, like phoneme deletion, suggesting a phonological weakness phenotype; or naming problems, like rapid letter naming, suggesting a rapid naming weakness phenotype, or both (de Groot et al., 2015;Hulme & Snowling, 2016;Landerl et al., 2022;Vanasse et al., 2005); and (3) familial: if present, a familial risk factor (de Jong et al., 2016;Ferrer et al., 2022;Hulme & Snowling, 2016;Snowling & Melby-Lervåg, 2016). Exclusionary criteria indicate that the problems in reading should not be secondary to, or primarily attributable to, improper schooling, visual impairment, very low IQ, or a neurological disorder (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-5;APA, 2013). ...

Family History Is Not Useful in Screening Children for Dyslexia

... The estimated prevalence of dyslexia varies depending on ascertainment schemes, exclusion criteria, tests included in diagnostic assessment, and thresholds used for a categorical diagnosis. In school-aged children, most estimates of dyslexia fall between 5-12% [2][3][4][5] but have been as low as 3.5% [6] and as high as 20% [7] In almost all past studies, including our own, males are at greater risk than females for both presence of dyslexia and its severity [2,5,[8][9][10]. Even with educational intervention, many aspects of dyslexia can persist into adulthood, including slow reading speed and poor spelling-related writing abilities [11][12][13] leaving lasting impacts on self-esteem, educational opportunities, and occupational choices [14][15][16]. ...

Dyslexia in the 21st century
  • Citing Article
  • December 2020

Current Opinion in Psychiatry

... However, if the cause is hereditary, the question may be raised why nature would be so selective as to protect children with lower IQ's and lower SES backgrounds from suffering from lower level deficits. Because it is hard -if not impossible to find a reason other than an arbitrary decision, the traditional concept and definition of 121 -developmental dyslexia has met serious criticism (see for recent reviews: Stanovich & Siegel, 1994;Toth & Siegel, 1994;Fletcher, Stuebing, Shaywitz & Shaywitz, Rourke & Francis, 1994). For instance, Rutter (1978) notes that there is no reason to assume that "... social disadvantage protects children from dyslexia". ...

Validity of the Concept of Dyslexia: Alternative Approaches to Definition and Classification
  • Citing Chapter
  • November 2020

... Specificity in dyslexia means that reading and writing problems are not accompanied by other scholastic deficiencies (Peterson and Pennington 2015). Unexpectedness means that dyslexics have considerable reading difficulties that cannot be explained by IQ or environment (Shaywitz et al. 2020). Both concepts have been linked to dyslexia since the late nineteenth century. ...

The Yale Outcome Study: Outcomes for Graduates with and without Dyslexia

... A Dislexia atinge aproximadamente 20% da população mundial e costuma ser identificada ainda na infância, em razão das dificuldades enfrentadas no ambiente escolar (Shaywitz;Shaywitz, 2020). Na fase adulta, estima-se uma A autoconfiança desses estudantes pode ser prejudicada, principalmente em situações sociais que envolvem leitura ou escrita em público, sendo que tais dificuldades muitas vezes passam despercebidas pelos docentes (Pereira;Silva, 2023). ...

The American experience: towards a 21st century definition of dyslexia
  • Citing Article
  • July 2020

... Furthermore, empirical studies illustrate that although phonological decoding is especially crucial for reading comprehension early in development, oral language comprehension plays a growing role as text complexity increases (Foorman et al., 2018;Holahan et al., 2018;Nation, 2019). Estimates suggest that by third grade, more than half of the words students encounter have multiple morphemes (Nagy et al., 2013;Nagy & Anderson, 1984). ...

Growth in Reading Comprehension and Verbal Ability From Grades 1 Through 9
  • Citing Article
  • July 2018

Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment

... The relations among MdLF microstructural metrics and age are consistent with past research on other white matter fibre tracts [30, [107][108][109][110]119,120]. Specifically, a lack or only slight changes in AD with age have been reported in a comprehensive study by Lebel and colleagues [121]. A tendency of FA to increase and RD and MD to decrease with age is evident from both between-group comparisons and correlation analyses. ...

Developmental trajectories of white matter structure in children with and without reading impairments

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience