The AJLD Early Career Researcher Award will be by open competition, based on the submission of a paper in a form appropriate for publication in the Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties. Those eligible to receive this Award will be researchers who have completed their PhD within the last six years, and who are currently engaged in research which has the potential to make a significant contribution to theory or practice in the learning difficulty area. Selection of the Early Career Researcher Award will be decided jointly by the Editors of the Journal and the LDA Award Judging Committee. Submissions for this Award are called for at the beginning of each year.
Researchers wishing to be considered for this Award are required to complete an application once nominations ooen at the beginning of each year. In addition to uploading your article to the application, applicants for this Award must also submit their article to the AJLD in the usual way (as per instructions here). All papers submitted for this Award will be considered for publication in the Journal, and those not qualifying for the Award may qualify for the special commendation of ‘highly commended’. Both members of LDA and non-members of LDA are eligible to be considered for this Award and a $500 prize is awared to the selected recipient.
2023 – No Recipient – See other award recipients here
Previous Recipients
2022 – Dr Signy Wegener
2021 – Sally Robinson-Kooi
Sally Robinson-Kooi’s Award was based on an article published in the Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties in 2020, on the topic of Using sentence dictation to practise and assess taught spelling and punctuation skills: A Year 2 explicit instruction intervention.
Sally continues to be engaged in research that has the potential to make a significant contribution to theory and classroom practice in supporting students with learning difficulties and students who speak English as an additional language or dialect.
2015 – Dr Tanya Serry
The 2015 Early Career Researcher Award, presented by the Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties, was awarded to Dr Tanya Serry. The central theme of Tanya Serry’s research is on policy and practices in the Australian context for students at all levels, who struggle with reading and spelling.
2015 AJLD Early Career Highly Commended Award to Dr Anne Bellert
Dr Anne Bellert, of Southern Cross University Faculty of Education and Social Work, received the special 2015 AJLD acclamation of ‘highly commended’ for her paper Effective Re-teaching, AJLD Vol 20 No.2. This review focuses on re-teaching within a formative cycle of instruction in regular classroom settings.
Anne’s main lecturing and research interests are learning difficulties, effective teaching for literacy and numeracy, neuroscience and education. Anne was LDA’s 2008 Student Award Winner with her paper Narrowing the gap: A report on the QuickSmart mathematics intervention, published in the Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties Vol 14 No.2. This article focuses on the cognitive factors that impact on students in the middle school years experiencing learning difficulties in basic mathematics.