FSU research team nets $8M grant to focus on students with learning disabilities

http://news.fsu.edu/news/education-society/2017/11/13/fsu-research-team-nets-8m-grant-focus-students-learning-disabilities/

A Florida State University-based research team studying the best ways to help students with learning disabilities has received an $8 million grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Led by Richard Wagner, the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Eugenia and Russell Morcom Chair, the grant is to further research on dyslexia and other learning disabilities, to help train the next generation of scientists, and to do public outreach to ensure that research on these issues is making its way into the nation’s schools.

“Some of the research we’ve done already has helped children in schools, but we don’t think we’ve done all we can yet,” Wagner said. “That’s really going to be our focus as we reach out more to make a difference in the schools and for families.”

The $8 million grant will be spread out over five years and fund research at Florida State as well as several other partner institutions under Wagner’s lead including Haskins Laboratories, University of California at Irvine, University of California at San Francisco, University of Washington, Vanderbilt University, Purdue University, University of Oregon, Yale and Southern Methodist University.

The grant is a continuation of work that the Florida Learning Disabilities Research Center — housed within the Florida Center for Reading Research and the College of Arts and Sciences — has done for the past 10 years. The center has had 10 years of continuous funding from NICHD and this grant extends that another five years. It is one of only three NICHD Learning Disabilities Research Centers in the country.