Annual Meeting Keynote Presenter
John Hutton, MD, MS, FAAP

Dr. John S. Hutton, MD MS FAAP, is an Associate Professor in the Division of General and Community Pediatrics at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. In addition to over 50 scientific articles, he has published over 40 children’s books, many with health-promoting themes, including reading with infants (SHARE/STEP), dialogic reading, safe sleep and limiting screen time. He is “spokes-doctor” for the Read Aloud 15 MINUTES campaign, on the national Medical Advisory Board and Research Steering Committee of Reach Out and Read, and co-author (neuroscience lead) of forthcoming American Academy of Pediatrics Literacy Promotion Guidelines. His work has been funded by philanthropy, foundations and the National Institutes of Health.

With his team, Dr. Hutton has published the first studies using MRI to quantify relationships between home reading and screen environments on brain structure and function in preschool-age children. He has also developed and validated measures of emergent literacy (The Reading House) and numeracy (The Number Farm) skills, shared reading quality (DialogPR, SharePR) and digital media use (ScreenQ). He is collaboratively testing innovative approaches to empowering reading and screen-related guidance for families in diverse settings, including specially designed children’s books, animated videos and a free, new mobile app (Reading Bees). Dr. Hutton will speak on the topic of how a child’s brain is “wired” for reading beginning in infancy, the impact of home literacy environment and digital media use on this process, “novel” approaches to early screening and guidance using children’s books, and how ROR is ideally positioned to help families succeed.

Learn more about Dr. Hutton here.