IDA-UMB Webinar: Executive Function and Dyslexia 

Presented by: Jennifer Petrich, PhD

Executive functions (EF) are a set of cognitive processes that are necessary for organization of information and regulation of behavior. EF impairment often exacerbates learning difficulties as well as obstructs attempts at remediation. It is therefore important to know the hallmarks and warning signs of EF impairment as well as how this type of deficit interacts with dyslexia and its intervention. This presentation will cover the development of executive functions, the neurobiology of impaired EF, how impaired EF manifests in dyslexic students, and how to address these deficits when working to remediate reading and writing in a dyslexic student.

About the Speaker: 

Dr. Jennifer Petrich started teaching children and adults with dyslexia almost 25 years ago, but has been interested in reading and dyslexia since childhood. Her interest stems from having a mother and brother with dyslexia and growing up watching their struggles with reading and spelling and how these struggles negatively affected their self-esteem. While in college, Dr. Petrich began working for New Heights Learning Center in Towson, MD where she was trained in multiple Lindamood-Bell programs over the next six years. Dr. Petrich then became interested in the neuroscience behind the heterogeneity she observed in her students and decided to attend graduate school at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, where she earned a PhD in Neuroscience. She subsequently worked as a research scientist in labs at both University of California San Diego and San Diego State University studying many different topics including visual psychophysics, psycholinguistics of deafness and sign language, bimodal bilingualism, and deafness and reading. Dr. Petrich is highly trained in both the Orton-Gillingham approach and the Structured Word Inquiry approach, and currently specializes in working with students who have severe phonological working memory deficits, ADHD, and executive functioning deficits.

This webinar will be recorded and available to view on IDA-UMB's website after the event. If you register, you will be notified when the recording is available.