Sally Shaywitz

Shaywitz was born and raised in The Bronx.[1] She is the daughter of two Eastern European immigrants.[1] Her father was a dressmaker and her mother a homemaker.[1] She earned her undergraduate degree at City University of New York, and originally considered a career in law.[2] She was accepted early to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.[2] That year her mother was diagnosed with endometrial cancer, and died just before Shaywitz started her medical studies.[1] When Shaywitz joined medical school, she was one of four women in a class of one hundred students.[1] Shaywitz completed her residency in paediatrics and developmental paediatrics.[1] Alongside completing her training, Shaywitz had three children, whom she raised in Dayton, Ohio.[1]

Shaywitz started her medical career seeing patients out of her home in suburban Connecticut.[1] She was eventually recruited by Yale University to look after patients with learning disorders, including dyslexia.[1] In 1979, Shaywitz joined the faculty at Yale.[3] Her research involves longitudinal epidemiological and neurobiological studies. In 1983 she started tracking a cohort of people from kindergarten to adulthood, a study which became known as The Connecticut Longitudinal Study.[4] She showed that boys and girls were equally as likely to be affected by dyslexia.[5] These studies allowed Shaywitz to identify a neural signature of dyslexia, as well as demonstrating that dyslexia is not simply a reading disorder young people 'outgrow'.[4] According to Shaywitz, dyslexia arises due to inefficient function in the neural systems responsible for skilled reading.[5] Shaywitz developed the "Sea of Strengths" model, which explains that dyslexia is a deficit in language processing.[1] Her research identified that there is no connection between dyslexia and intelligence.[5]

In 2003 Shaywitz published Overcoming Dyslexia, a book which helps people identify, understand and overcome challenges in reading.[6]

• 1995 Albert Einstein College of Medicine Distinguished Alumnus Award[7]
• 1998 Elected member of the National Academy of Medicine
• 1998 Society for Women's Health Research Achievement Award in Women's Health[2]
• 1999 American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Sidney Berman Award[8]
• 2003 Margot Marek Book Award[9]
• 2004 City College of New York Townsend Harris Medal[10]
• 2005 Williams College Honorary Doctor of Science degree[11]
• 2012 Samuel Torrey Orton Award (jointly with Bennett Shaywitz)[12]
• 2017 Liberty Science Center Genius Award[13]
• 2020 Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science[14]

• Lyon, G. Reid; Shaywitz, Sally E.; Shaywitz, Bennett A. (2003-01-01). "A definition of dyslexia". Annals of Dyslexia. 53 (1): 1–14. doi:10.1007/s11881-003-0001-9. ISSN 1934-7243. S2CID 145448439.
• Shaywitz, Sally E.; Shaywitz, Bennett A.; Fletcher, Jack M.; Escobar, Michael D. (1990-08-22). "Prevalence of Reading Disability in Boys and Girls: Results of the Connecticut Longitudinal Study". JAMA. 264 (8): 998–1002. doi:10.1001/jama.1990.03450080084036. ISSN 0098-7484. PMID 2376893.
• Shaywitz, Sally E.; Shaywitz, Bennett A.; Pugh, Kenneth R.; Fulbright, Robert K.; Constable, R. Todd; Mencl, W. Einar; Shankweiler, Donald P.; Liberman, Alvin M.; Skudlarski, Pawel; Fletcher, Jack M.; Katz, Leonard (1998-03-03). "Functional disruption in the organization of the brain for reading in dyslexia". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 95 (5): 2636–2641. Bibcode:1998PNAS...95.2636S. doi:10.1073/pnas.95.5.2636. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 19444. PMID 9482939.

Shaywitz is married to Bennett Shaywitz, a paediatrician with whom she co-founded the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity.[2] They met and were married in 1963.[5]