Athens, Ga. – University of Georgia Distinguished Research Professor Noel Gregg has been selected to serve on two national committees-one focusing on adolescent and adult literacy and another on writing abilities and development of those same two age groups.
Gregg is director of the Regent’s Center for Learning Disorders in the department of psychology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. She is also a faculty member in the department of communication sciences and special education in the College of Education.
Greg was selected to serve on a National Research Council committee of the National Academies of Science to study the scientific foundations of adolescent and adult literacy. She also has been selected to serve on a committee for the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to study the current research surrounding written composition development and abilities in the same populations.
Specifically, both committees will join research on reading and written language from the multidisciplinary perspectives within education, cognitive and behavioral science, neuroscience and other related fields to provide groundwork for understanding the major factors affecting literacy learning in adolescents and adults.
“A significant number of adolescents and adults demonstrate chronic reading and written expression underachievement, influencing their schooling and work outcomes,” Gregg said. “Both committees will allow researchers, representing a variety of disciplines and perspectives, to integrate the existing research and provide recommendations to both the National Academies of Science and the National Institute of Health that will hopefully lead to more research funding benefiting the adolescent and adult populations.”
Gregg joined the UGA faculty in 1982. Since then, she has founded the Learning Disabilities Center, the Regents Center for Learning Disorders and co-founded the Alternative Media Access Center.
Gregg’s most recent book, Adolescents and Adults with Learning Disabilities and AD/HD, was just published by Guilford.