Positions

I work within the Developmental Psychology group within the Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam. I am also Director of the Rudolf Berlin Center for learning disabilities. http://rudolfberlin.org/

I serve on the Editorial Board of

Annals of Dyslexia

Dyslexia

Research

My focus is on educational and school psychology with a special interest in first language acquisition and foreign language learning. I focus on individual differences between children in first and foreign language learning in a schoolcontext to improve teaching. I also aim to help teachers and practitioners to better aid children with learning disabilities such as developmental dyslexia. I use innovative methods such as game-based learning to improve differentiation in teaching and to assist teachers in taking individual differences into account. I also do research on improving children's well-being and learning at schools by improving the interaction between parents, schools, clinical practitioners and children in schools for special education.

My research is carried out within the Rudolf Berlin Center and NWO funded projects.

Ongoing Research Projects

EyeRead.

With Ingmar Visser, Postdocs: Ruomeng Zhu and Mariska Okkinga

We investigate how students adopt different reading strategies while reading in English and how this is related to their comprehension. The project is called “EyeRead”, as we utilize eye-tracking to shed light on the reading process of the students. The goal of this study is important from both a scientific perspective and from an educational practice perspective. As students in higher education are increasingly faced with longer texts and more complex tasks, they may face difficulties in both understanding those texts and relating the texts to the task. With this project, we uncover which strategies or task approaches contribute to successful reading comprehension. 

ORal and Written English Language Learning (ORWELL). All children are equal but some are more equal than others. Improving the acquisition of English at school. NWO-Nationaal Regieorgaan Onderwijsonderzoek (NRO).

With Judith Rispens, Jurgen Tijms and Maurits van der Molen, PhD student: Nihayra Leona, Postdocs: Margreet van Koert and Claire Goriot.

Excellent English language teaching is considered extremely important for societal success. Although English is mandatory, and demands of national exams have recently become more strict, it is yet unknown how teaching can optimally cater for individual differences between children.

In this project we 1. Unravel cognitive, linguistic and motivational predictors for succesful English learning in the highest three grades of primary education. 2. Develop individualized teaching methods for learning English.

Completed Research Projects

NEurodevelopmental Optimal-Predictors, Risk factors, and Intervention from a
Systems approach to Maladjustment in Children (Neo-PRISM-C project). With Jurgen Tijms and Reinout Wiers, PhD student: Cara Verwimp

The purpose of the Neo-PRISM-C ETN is three-fold. First, it seeks to train Early Stage
Researchers (ESRs) in applying the Research Domain Criteria, a novel framework for
understanding psychopathology, to the study of the mechanisms and treatments of
NDD. Second, it aims to train ESRs from multiple disciplines (psychology, neuroscience,
data science) in state-of-the-art and transferable skills for innovating the study of brainbehavior
relationships in NDD, in the context of a systems-based, trans-diagnostic
theoretical frame. Finally, this ETN will also support training in designing evidencebased,
individualized treatments of learning, behavioral, and social maladjustment,
bridging across diagnostic categories. Towards these goals, we have assembled a
trans-sectoral European network with expertise in cognitive, social, educational,
clinical, and emotion research to provide training ESRs. The Neo-Prism-C project is
funded by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Innovative Training Network (ITN) actions (See: http://www.neoprismc. org/).

“Omdat de leerling er beter van wordt………………..”. Betrokkenheid van ouders bij onderwijs en behandeling in een residentiële setting voor de LVB doelgroep.

With Annematt Collot d'Escury and Helle Larsen. PhD student Annie de Groot (External, Orthopedagogisch behandelcentrum en onderwijs ‘s Heeren Loo).

Onderzoeken en toetsen van een interventie voor ouderbetrokkenheid in de context van het onderwijs binnen een residentiële setting voor licht verstandelijk beperkte (LVB) leerlingen. Ouderbetrokkenheid wordt gezien als een bepalende factor in schoolsucces (Marzano, 2013). Het doel van deze studie is in beeld brengen hoe ouderbetrokkenheid bij deze doelgroep en in deze context het beste kan worden vormgegeven. Op basis van een literatuurstudie, consultatie van experts en toetsing in school wordt er een interventie en handreiking ontwikkeld om ouderbetrokkenheid goed vorm te geven. 

Fluency in Reading: Behavioural and neural correlates of cognitive processing in children with developmental dyslexia and typically reading children. With Maurits van der Molen and Hilde Huizenga, PhD student Maaike Zeguers. Amsterdam Brain and Cognition (ABC)  research priority project

Associative learning in reading fluency: neurocognitive processes underlying reading fluency and fluency training. With Maurits van der Molen and Jurgen Tijms, PhD student Sebastián Aravena. University of Amsterdam and IWAL institutes for Dyslexia

Teaching

A selection of my teaching courses: Childhood Development Clinical and School,  Practical Intervention skills, Supervising Bachelor and Master theses, Lectures on Dyslexia and Reading Development,  Supervising Practical Internships , Advanced Internship Learning disabilities at the Rudolf Berlin Center

Awards

Nihayra Leona winner of UvA Psychology Research Master Thesis Prize 2014.

Title: Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior to Low-Achieving Adolescents' Reading Behavior in Different Reading Contexts

Supervisors: Patrick Snellings, Amos van Gelderen and Mariska Okkinga 

Selected Publications

Verwimp, C., Vaessen, A., Snellings, P., Wiers, R.W., & Tijms, J. (2024). The COVID generation: Online dyslexia treatment equally effective as face-to-face treatment in a Dutch sample. Ann. of Dyslexia (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11881-023-00298-0

Verwimp, C., Tijms, J., Snellings, P., & Wiers, R.W. (2023). A randomised proof-of-concept trial on the effectiveness of a game-based training of phoneme-grapheme correspondences in pre-readers. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. http://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12821

Verwimp, C., Tijms, J., Snellings, P., & Wiers, R. W. (2023). Goal-Directedness Enhances Letter-Speech Sound Learning and Consolidation in an Unknown Orthography. Child Development. http://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13901

Van Koert, M., Leona, N. L, Rispens, J., Tijms, J., van der Molen, M., Grunberg, H.L. &  Snellings, P. (2023). English grammar skills in Dutch grade 4 children: Examining the relation between L1 and L2 language skills. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-023-09968-x

Van Koert, M. J. H., Leona, N. L., Rispens, J. E., Tijms, J., Van der Molen, M. W., Daal, V. H. P. van and Snellings, P. "The role of memory in the acquisition of vocabulary and grammar in the first language and in English as a foreign language". Second Language Learning Before Adulthood: Individual Differences in Children and Adolescents, edited by Vanessa De Wilde and Claire Goriot, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2022, pp. 31-64. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110743043-003

De Groot, A., Snellings, P.J.F. & Collot d’Escury, A.M.L (2022). Ouderbetrokkenheid in onderwijs en behandeling bij licht verstandelijk beperkte jongeren in een (semi)residentiële setting. Orthopedagogiek: Onderzoek en Praktijk, 61(1)

Verwimp, C., Tijms, J., Snellings, P., Haslbeck, J. M. B., & Wiers, R. W. (2021). A network approach to dyslexia: Mapping the reading network. Development and Psychopathology, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579421000365

Nihayra L. Leona, Margreet J.H. van Koert, Maurits W. van der Molen, Judith E. Rispens, Jurgen Tijms, Patrick Snellings (2021). Explaining individual differences in young English language learners’ vocabulary knowledge: The role of Extramural English Exposure and motivation, System, Volume 96, 2021, 102402, ISSN 0346-251X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2020.102402

Verburg, M., Snellings, P., Zeguers, M. H. T., & Huizenga, H. (2019). Positive-blank versus negative-blank feedback learning in children and adults. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747021818769038

Zeguers, M. H. T., van den Boer, M., Snellings, P., & de Jong, P. F. (2018). Universal and language-specific predictors of early word reading in a foreign language: An analysis of the skills that underlie reading acquisition in three different orthographies.  Developmental Psychology, 54(12), 2274-2290. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000606

Zeguers, M. H. T., Huizenga, H., & M.W. van der Molen, & Snellings, P. (2017). Time course analyses of orthographic and phonological priming effects in developing  readers. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. doi: 10.1080/17470218.2017.1345958

Aravena, S., Tijms, J., Snellings, P., & van der Molen, M. W. (2017). Predicting individual differences in reading and spelling skill with an artificial script-based letter-speech sound training. Journal of Learning Disabilities. doi:10.1177/0022219417715407

S. Aravena, Tijms, J., Snellings, P., & M.W. van der Molen (2016). Predicting responsiveness to intervention in dyslexia using dynamic assessment. Learning and Individual Differences, July 2016, 209–215,  doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2016.06.024.

Tijms, J., Scheltinga, F., Zeguers, M. & Snellings, P. (2016). Dyslexie. In Snellings, P. & Zeguers, M. (Eds.). Interventies in het onderwijs: Leerproblemen (2e druk). Amsterdam: Boom.

Zeguers, M. & Snellings, P. (2016). De ontwikkeling en het trainen van leesvloeiendheid. In Van den Broeck, W. (Ed.). Handboek dyslexieonderzoek. Wetenschappelijke inzichten in diagnostiek, oorzaken, preventie en behandeling van dyslexie. Acco: Leuven/Den Haag.

Zeguers, M. H. T., Snellings, P., Huizenga, H., & M.W. van der Molen (2014). Time course analyses of orthographic and phonological priming effects during word recognition in a transparent orthography. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.

S. Aravena, Snellings, P., J. Tijms & M.W. van der Molen (2013). A lab-controlled simulation of a letter–speech sound binding deficit in dyslexia. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 115(4), 691-707.

M.H.T. Zeguers, P. Snellings, J. Tijms, W.D. Weeda, P. Tamboer, A. Bexkens & H.M. Huizenga (2011). Specifying theories of developmental dyslexia: a diffusion model analysis of word recognition. Developmental Science, 14(6), 1340-1354.

Snellings, P. , Leij, A. v. d., de Jong, P. F., & Blok, H. (2010). Reading fluency and speech perception speed of beginning readers with persistent reading problems: the perception of initial stop consonants and consonant clusters. Annals of Dyslexia, 60 , 151-174.

Snellings, P. , van der Leij, A., de Jong, P. F., & Blok, H. (2009). Enhancing the Reading Fluency and Comprehension of Children With Reading Disabilities in an Orthographically Transparent Language. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 42 (4), 291-305.

Van Gelderen, A., Schoonen, R., De Glopper, K., Hulstijn, J., Simis, A., Snellings, P., & Stevenson, M. (2004). Linguistic Knowledge, Processing Speed and Metacognitive Knowledge in First and Second Language Reading Comprehension; A Componential Analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96(1), 19-30.

Snellings, P. , Van Gelderen, A., & De Glopper, K. (2004). The effect of enhanced lexical retrieval on L2 writing; a classroom experiment. Applied Psycholinguistics, 25 (2), 175-200.

Snellings, P. , Van Gelderen, A., & De Glopper, K. (2004). Validating a test of second language written lexical retrieval: a new measure of fluency in written language production. Language Testing, 21 (2), 174-201.