Alida Anderson

Alida Anderson is a professor at the School of Education at American University in Washington, DC, where she has been since 2009, and an award winning visual artist.

Education Anderson attended Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC (1987), and holds a BA, Art/Art History and Asian Studies, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, an MA, Learning Disabilities, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, and a PhD, Special Education, from the University of Maryland, College Park, MD.

Research Anderson is a widely published academic researcher, whose work focuses on multiple areas of research in special education and the arts, as well as "cross-linguistic correlation of dyslexia."

She is the co-editor of The Journal of the Arts and Special Education, a publication of the Division of the Visual and Performing Arts of the Council for Exceptional Children. (has been characterized as "this study includes not only answers to important research questions, but practice-oriented information that is useful for pedagogy, course design, and leadership, as well as for further research on this topic.", described as "the implications of these new findings are very relevant to the way we teach in the classroom.", and also noted that this research affirmed "that neuromyth beliefs are remarkably prevalent, but that training in education and neuroscience helped to reduce these false beliefs." has been described as "integrating dance and movement therapy into math lessons for students with learning disabilities, emotional/behavioral disabilities and/or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), [which] led to improvements in math as well as SEL [Social-Emotional Learning] skills, such as motivation, engagement, attention and self-regulation", and concluded that "the findings were significant because students with those special needs often show anxiety toward learning math."

She is the editor of the book "Arts Integration and Special Education: An Inclusive Theory of Action for Student Engagement." The book has been described as "the first book to posit explanations for how and why arts integration facilitates learning in students with language and sensory processing disorders and those at risk for failure due to low socioeconomic conditions."

Anderson defines her interpretation of "arts integration" as “the use of an art form (drama, dance, visual arts, etc.) in combination with teaching of a content area (math, science, social studies, language arts, etc.), in which there are content learning objectives in the art form as well as in the content area.”

In 2020 Anderson was credited as being one of the "thinkers" who, together with the Arts Education Partnership in Denver, Colorado, "began exploring intersections of arts education and literacies" that led to the eventual creation of an online resource that "incorporates art and text to support different experiences and interactions as you explore the relationships between art, arts education and literacies."