Linda Siegel

Biography In 1942, Siegel was born in Washington, DC, but grew up in New York City, where her family moved when she was six years old.

In the 1980s, Siegel's earliest research on human information processing became increasingly focused on developmental disabilities, especially reading disability. Many of her best-known papers are on the relationship between IQ and reading disability classification. Her research on that relationship has at times proven controversial.

In 2008, Siegel appeared in Fixing My Brain (2008), a CBC documentary, about the Arrowsmith program, although a portion of her highly critical commentary was removed prior to broadcast after Arrowsmith Young's lawyers threatened the CBC with a lawsuit.

In 2010, Siegel was awarded the Canadian Psychological Association Gold Medal for Distinguished Lifetime Contributions to Canadian Psychology,

In 2012, Siegel became the first recipient of the Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties Eminent Researcher Award.

In her paper "Confessions and Reflections of the Black Sheep of the Learning Disabilities Field" (2012), Siegel presented evidence from her long-term research to support her contention "that the IQ score is unnecessary in the diagnosis of whether or not there is a learning disability". She also criticized as "very regressive", trends to demand testing for "'processing deficits', even though there is no evidence that processing deficits are useful for either diagnosis or remediation" of learning disabilities.

In 2013, Pacific Educational Press published Siegel's most recent book, Understanding dyslexia and other learning disabilities (2013).

On January 27, 2022, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) released a report on its public inquiry entitled Right to Read inquiry report, compiled with the expert assistance of Dr. Linda Siegel and Dr. Jamie Metsala.

Research Siegel has been one of several academics who have criticized studies supportive of "brain training" programs and especially the Arrowsmith program founded by Barbara Arrowsmith Young in 1978.

Works with overviews of Siegel's research include the Brueggemann Taylor book Diagnostic Assessment of Learning Disabilities in Childhood (2014) and an article by Hayman-Abello et al., "Human neuropsychology in Canada: The 1990s" (2003).