Virginia W. Berninger Ph.D.

Virginia W. Berninger, Ph.D., is a Professor Emerita of Educational Psychology at the University of Washington, where she served on the faculty from the mid-1980s until 2016 and held roles in Educational Psychology and Learning Sciences and Human Development. She earned her Ph.D. in psychology from Johns Hopkins University and completed predoctoral and postdoctoral clinical psychology training at Boston Children’s Hospital before holding faculty appointments at Harvard Medical School and Tufts New England Medical Center. A licensed psychologist and former general and special education teacher and reading specialist, she has conducted extensive NIH/NICHD-funded research on specific learning disabilities, typical and atypical reading and writing development, and multidisciplinary approaches to assessment and intervention.

Berninger is the author and coauthor of numerous scholarly publications and books on literacy and learning disabilities, including Multisensory Teaching of Basic Language Skills, in which she draws on her background in developmental psycholinguistics, educational neuroscience, and school-based practice. Across more than three decades of research and clinical work, she has contributed to evidence-based frameworks for differential diagnosis of dyslexia, dysgraphia, and oral and written language learning disabilities (OWL LD) and has been a principal investigator on long-term projects integrating brain imaging, genetics, diagnostics, and instructional intervention for struggling learners.