Paul Satz (September 12, 1932 – June 20, 2010) was an American

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

, and one of the founders of the discipline

neuropsychology Neuropsychology is a branch of psychology concerned with how a person's cognition and behavior are related to the brain and the rest of the nervous system. Professionals in this branch of psychology often focus on how injuries or illnesses of t ...

. His research on the relationship between the

brain A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a v ...

and

human behavior Human behavior is the potential and expressed capacity ( mentally, physically, and socially) of human individuals or groups to respond to internal and external stimuli throughout their life. Kagan, Jerome, Marc H. Bornstein, and Richard M. L ...

spanned diverse topics including

laterality The term laterality refers to the preference most humans show for one side of their body over the other. Examples include left-handedness/right-handedness and left/right-footedness; it may also refer to the primary use of the left or right hemi ...

handedness In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known as the dominant hand, due to it being stronger, faster or more Fine motor skill, dextrous. The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dextrous or sim ...

, and developmental disorders. He published over 300 publications, received numerous grants and awards, and established the first neuropsychology lab. Towards the latter part of his career, Satz's research interests focused more on the

cognitive deficit Cognitive deficit is an inclusive term to describe any characteristic that acts as a barrier to the cognition process. The term may describe * deficits in overall intelligence (as with intellectual disabilities), * specific and restricted defici ...

s associated with

head injury A head injury is any injury that results in trauma to the skull or brain. The terms ''traumatic brain injury'' and ''head injury'' are often used interchangeably in the medical literature. Because head injuries cover such a broad scope of inju ...

dementia Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affe ...

, and

ageing Ageing ( BE) or aging ( AE) is the process of becoming older. The term refers mainly to humans, many other animals, and fungi, whereas for example, bacteria, perennial plants and some simple animals are potentially biologically immortal. In ...

Early life and education

Paul Satz was born in

Ware, Massachusetts Ware is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 10,066 as of 2020. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The census-designated place of Ware, comprising the main settleme ...

, to Leo and Milly Satz. He was the elder to his three siblings George, Ada and Ruth. Shortly after graduating high school, he moved to Florida to attend the

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. , the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, incl ...

. From the University of Miami, Satz received both his Bachelor's degree (1957) and his Master's degree in

clinical psychology Clinical psychology is an integration of social science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and persona ...

(1959). He then went on to complete his PhD in clinical psychology at the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentu ...

, under the supervision of Jesse Harris. In 1963, the American Institutes for Research (AIR) awarded Satz the Creative Talent Award, for his dissertation work (The Block Rotation Task); a task used to predict organic brain disorder. The same year, he began a

post-doctoral A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a Doctor of Philosophy, PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral rese ...

position at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

within the Department of Psychiatry.

Research career

A year after beginning his post-doc at the University of Florida (UF), Satz accepted a faculty position from UF's chair of the Department of Clinical Psychology, Dr. Louis Cohen. As a UF faculty member, he created UF's first neuropsychology subspecialty, and opened the first neuropsychology research laboratory. Along with colleague Ken Heilman, Satz developed UF's first course in neuropsychology, Human Higher Brain Function, which is still offered to graduate students today. At this point in time, Satz's research interests included

developmental disorder Developmental disorders comprise a group of psychiatric conditions originating in childhood that involve serious impairment in different areas. There are several ways of using this term. The most narrow concept is used in the category "Specific Di ...

s such as

dyslexia Dyslexia, also known until the 1960s as word blindness, is a disorder characterized by reading below the expected level for one's age. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, r ...

, as well as

and how these relate to speech and language processes. Satz's neuropsychology laboratory, the first of its kind, focused on providing graduate students with a comprehensive training in this new-found area, neuropsychology. He received his first

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

grant to study predictors of childhood dyslexia. His students assisted in what would become the Florida Longitudinal Project, which studied developmental dyslexia in students from

Kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cent ...

through

sixth grade Sixth grade (or grade six in some regions) is the sixth year of schooling. Students are typically 11–12 years old, depending on when their birthday occurs. Different terms and numbers are used in other parts of the world. It is commonly the firs ...

. In addition to NIH grants supporting his work in children, Satz also received NIH funding to conduct handedness and laterality studies in adults. His work on

cerebral dominance The lateralization of brain function is the tendency for some neural functions or cognitive processes to be specialized to one side of the brain or the other. The median longitudinal fissure separates the human brain into two distinct cerebral ...

and

reading disabilities A reading disability is a condition in which a person displays difficulty reading. Examples of reading disabilities include: developmental dyslexia, alexia (acquired dyslexia), and hyperlexia (word-reading ability well above normal for age and I ...

was recognized by the

International Reading Association The International Literacy Association (ILA), formerly the International Reading Association (IRA), is an international global advocacy and member professional organization that was created in 1956 to improve reading instruction, facilitate dialo ...

in 1977 when he was awarded the Albert J. Harris Award. Satz assisted in the founding of the

International Neuropsychological Society The International Neuropsychological Society is an international non-profit learned society dedicated to promoting research in neuropsychology. It was established in 1967 with only a few members, with its membership growing to about 5,000 by 2015. ...

(INS), and became its president in 1974. He left the University of Florida in 1979. Before accepting a position at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

(UCLA) in 1981, Satz spent two short years at the

University of Victoria The University of Victoria (UVic or Victoria) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. The university traces its roots to Victoria College, the first post-secondary instit ...

. While at UCLA, Satz founded the neuropsychology program at the

Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior The Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior is a research institute of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). It includes a number of centers, including the "Center for Neurobehavioral Genetics", which uses DNA sequencing, ...

. His work on laterality, handedness and learning disabilities received many accolades; in 1988, the American Board of Professional Psychology awarded Satz its Meritorious Service Award, and in 1996 he received the

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...

Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Knowledge.

Handedness, laterality, and developmental disorders

The most notable of Satz's work include his studies on left-handedness, how handedness relates to brain laterality, and the relationship between hand preference, brain laterality and developmental disorders. In one of his earlier studies, Satz found that self-reported hand preference in left-handers was unreliable, and that left-handers vary more in speech laterality than right-handers. Another seminal study by Satz and colleagues included their 1971 publication theorizing that there is no single mechanism underlying the developmental disorder dyslexia. Instead, the authors suggested and provided evidence that the disorder involves multiple lags in

central nervous system The central nervous system (CNS) is the part of the nervous system consisting primarily of the brain and spinal cord. The CNS is so named because the brain integrates the received information and coordinates and influences the activity of all par ...

maturation and that the behavioral manifestations are linked to developmental ages. For many years, Satz went on to publish a number of studies on pathological left-handedness (PHL); PHL is considered left-handedness as a result of head injuries to the left side of the brain.

Personal life

In the 1960s Paul Satz married his wife Gladys, and they had three children: Mark, Julie, and Scott. He died on June 20, 2010, from cancer.

Notable publications

* Satz, P., & Mogel, S. (1962). An abbreviation of the WAIS for clinical use. ''Journal of Clinical Psychology'', ''18''(1), 77-79. * Satz, P. (1966). A block rotation task: The application of multivariate and decision theory analysis for the prediction of organic brain disorder. ''Psychological Monographs: General and Applied'', ''80''(21), 1. * Satz, P., Achenbach, K., & Fennell, E. (1967). Correlations between assessed manual laterality and predicted speech laterality in a normal population. Neuropsychologia, 5(4), 295-310. * Satz, P., Rardin, D., & Ross, J. (1971). An evaluation of a theory of specific developmental dyslexia. Child Development, 2009-2021. * Satz, P. (1972). Pathological left-handedness: An explanatory model. Cortex, 8(2), 121-135. * Satz, P. (1973). Left-handedness and early brain insult: An explanation. ''Neuropsychologia'', ''11''(1), 115-117. * Satz, P., & Morris, R. (1981). Learning disability subtypes: A review. ''Neuropsychological and cognitive processes in reading'', 109-141. * Satz, P., Orsini, D. L., Saslow, E., & Henry, R. (1985). The pathological left-handedness syndrome. ''Brain and cognition'', ''4''(1), 27-46. * Satz, P. (1993). Brain reserve capacity on symptom onset after brain injury: a formulation and review of evidence for threshold theory. ''Neuropsychology'', ''7''(3), 273. * Satz, P., Zaucha, K., McCleary, C., Light, R., Asarnow, R., & Becker, D. (1997). Mild head injury in children and adolescents: A review of studies (1970–1995). ''Psychological bulletin'', ''122''(2), 107.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Satz, Paul Neuropsychologists 20th-century American psychologists University of Florida faculty University of California, Los Angeles faculty University of Miami alumni University of Kentucky alumni People from Ware, Massachusetts 1932 births 2010 deaths Dyslexia researchers