The CU Learning Disabilities (LD) Leadership Core: Scaffolding a Growing Center of Environmental LD Research and The Next generation of LD Scholars

The Leadership Core of the Columbia Psychiatry, Psychology, and Public Health Collaborative LD Innovation Hub will train the next generation of LD researchers to take on transdisciplinary, impactful work by learning to conduct cutting-edge neuroscience and engage with the wider child educational system. To do this we will build an integrated leadership training infrastructure, providing state-of-the-art neuroscience research training, and delivering a translational science training program—all aimed to prepare early investigators with skills needed to bridge the gap between learning difficulties (LDiff) research and best practices in the educational system. Our framework uses a bidirectional hub and spoke model, linking the embedded research project (the hub) with a network of community sites in which trainees work with practitioners/learning specialists in the educational system and provide feedback to the research study with respect to community needs and communication challenges. The hub will train early career scientists to conduct cutting-edge neuroscience to explore the biological and cognitive pathways linking environmental chemical and social exposures to LDiff. The spokes of the model comprise the translational component, in which early investigators receive training in how to engage with and listen to community members, and translate community needs and relevant research to practitioners, educators, and policy-makers who are responsible for making change in educational settings. The Leadership Core will thus prepare the next generation of LD research scientists with a full set of research, communication, and leadership skills, spanning neuroscience, epidemiology, systems thinking, and dissemination & implementation science. The core will develop an administrative and training infrastructure for the overall LD Innovation Hub, deliver a state-of-the-art biological/neuroscience research methods training program, and implement a translational science training program with didactic and experiential components. IMPACT: Our Leadership Core expands the LD research paradigm by training future leaders in neuroscience and analytic techniques (the hub), linked to a translational community-based practicum experience in disadvantaged educational communities (the spokes). We go beyond community participatory research to prepare future LD leaders with practice-based communication, listening, and engagement skills, enabling them to become independent investigators, faculty members, and spokespersons for children from economically disadvantaged families who suffer disproportionately with learning difficulties, thereby helping to close the gap between research and practice.