Leonard Abbeduto, PhD

Leonard Abbeduto, PhD, is the Director of the MIND Institute, the Tsakopoulos-Vismara Endowed Chair, and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Abbeduto’s research is focused broadly on the development of language across the lifespan in individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and on the family context for language development. 

Dr. Abbeduto has published more than 200 articles, chapters, reviews, and books on fragile X syndrome, autism, Down syndrome, and child development. His program of research has been funded nearly continuously by NIH since 1985. His current research is focused on understanding variation in language outcomes in various conditions associated with intellectual disability, the measurement of treatment effects in clinical trials, and the use of distance technology to deliver behavioral treatment.

He serves as Principal Investigator and Director of the NICHD-funded MIND Institute Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center (IDDRC), which provides core support to more than 80 projects and 40 scientists at the UC Davis MIND Institute. Dr. Abbeduto has received numerous awards, including the Enid and William Rosen Research Award from the National Fragile X Foundation, and the Edgard Doll Award for Distinguished Research Contribution from Division 33 of the American Psychological Association. He earned his PhD in psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1982.