Children with Disabilities

Mark L. Batshaw, M.D., is currently the "Fight for Children" Chair of Academic Medicine and Chief Academic Officer at the Children's National Medical Center (CNMC) in Washington, D.C., and serves as Professor and Chairman of Pediatrics and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Washington, D.C. Dr. Batshaw is also Director of the Children's Research Institute at CNMC. Dr. Batshaw is a board-certified neurodevelopmental pediatrician who has treated children with developmental disabilities for more than 25 years. Before moving to Washington in 1998, he was Physician-in-Chief of Children's Seashore House, the child development and rehabilitation institute of The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and held the W.T. Grant Chair in Child Development at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Dr. Batshaw is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and of the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. Following pediatric residency in his native Canada at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, he completed a fellowship in developmental pediatrics at the Kennedy Institute (now called the Kennedy Krieger Institute) and The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore.

He remained a professor at Johns Hopkins for 13 years and won the prestigious Alexander Schaffer teaching award while there. A Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., Scholar and recipient of major grants from the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Batshaw is director of the NIH-funded Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Center at CNMC and continues to pursue his research on innovative treatments for inborn errors of metabolism, including gene therapy. Dr. Batshaw has published more than 130 articles, chapters, and reviews on his research interests and on the medical aspects of the care of children with disabilities. Dr. Batshaw was the founding editor in chief (1995 - 2001) of the journal Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews. He is also the editor of When Your Child Has a Disability: The Complete Sourcebook of Daily and Medical Care, Revised Edition (Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2001), and Handbook of Developmental Disabilities (co-edited with Kurtz, Dowrick, & Levy; Aspen Publishers, 1996). Dr. Batshaw is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and is a member of the American Pediatric Society, the Society for Inherited Metabolic Disorders, the Society for Pediatric Research, and the Society for Developmental Pediatrics. Dr. Batshaw's investment in the well-being of children was first sparked by his parents, both of whom were social workers; his father was involved in modernizing the juvenile justice system in Quebec. Dr. Batshaw's wife, Karen, is a social worker in the field of international adoptions. His children also continue this legacy of making a difference: His daughter, Elissa, is a special education teacher and co-authored the chapter on special education in this edition of Children with Disabilities; his son Michael is a social worker; and his younger son, Drew, has overcome the challenges of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder to graduate from Vassar College and enter business school.

Nancy J. Roizen, M.D., is the Chief of the Division of Developmental–Behavioral Pediatrics and Psychology at University Hospital of Cleveland's Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland. She is certified in neurodevelopmental disabilities and developmental-behavioral pediatrics.
Dr. Roizen received her B.S. and M.D. degrees from Tufts University. After completing an internship in pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital, she did a residency in pediatrics at The John’s Hopkins Hospital. Her fellowships were in neurodevelopmental disabilities at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and in developmental and behavioral pediatrics at University of California, San Francisco. She was then a staff physician at the Child Development Center at Oakland Children’s Hospital for 8 years followed by 16 years as Chief of the Section of Developmental Pediatrics at University of Chicago. Next, at SUNY Upstate Medical University, she was the Vice-Chair for Education for the Department of Pediatrics and Chief of the Division of Neurosciences for 4 years. Next stop was the Cleveland Clinic where she was the Chief of the Department of Developmental Pediatrics, and Physiatry for 2 years. Dr. Roizen has published 125 articles, books, reviews, and chapters on research and the clinical aspects of children with developmental disabilities including those with Down syndrome, toxoplasmosis, and velocardiofacial syndrome.


Laura Gutermuth Anthony, Ph.D., is a psychologist and a Professor in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine, and Children’s Hospital of Colorado. Dr. Anthony completed a dual degree doctoral program in clinical and developmental psychology at the University of Illinois, Chicago, in 1997. She has focused most of her research and clinical work on children with neurodevelopmental disabilities and authored o coauthored more than 75 publications. She has also received or participated in 32 externally funded research grants. She has specialized training and research experience using Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) methods and partnerships to develop interventions, contextualize and disseminate results and implement findings in the community. In 2021, she was appointed the inaugural Director of Research for Child and Adolescent Mental Health at the University of Colorado.

Philippa H. Campbell, Ph.D., directs all of the research and training projects under the Child and Family Studies Research Programs (CFSRP) at Thomas Jefferson University.

Larry W. Desch, M.D., FAAP, directs both the clinical and educational aspects of developmental pediatrics at Hope Children's Hospital, a major teaching affiliate of the University of Illinois College of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics. He completed his fellowship training in developmental disabilities at the University of Kansas Medical School and did postfellowship work for 3 years with Drs. Al Healy, Mark Wolraich, and James Blackman at the University of Iowa. Since then, Dr. Desch has served on the faculties of the University of Missouri and University of Wisconsin medical schools. He is a clinical associate professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago College of Medicine. Over the years, Dr. Desch has also assisted various state agencies that deal with children with a wide spectrum of disabilities and has served on a number of advisory boards and committees for children with disabilities of state chapters of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) (including as a past chair of the committee in Missouri). He is also active in a number of national academic and professional organizations, including the AAP (the Section on Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics and the Section on Children with Disabilities), the Society for Developmental Pediatrics, the Ambulatory Pediatrics Association, and the Midwest Society for Pediatric Research. Within the American Academy for Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine, Dr. Desch serves as chair of the Continuing Education Committee.

Lauren Kenworthy, Ph.D., is Professor of Neurology, Pediatrics, and Psychiatry at the George Washington University School of Medicine, Associate Chief of the Neuropsychology Division and Director of the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders at Children’s National Health System. Dr. Kenworthy received her bachelor of arts degree from Yale University and her doctoral degree from the University of Maryland. Her research interests are in describing, supporting and treating neuropsychological phenotypes in autism. She is the author of more than 85 peer-reviewed publications, three treatment manuals, and a coauthor of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function. She has participated in more than 25 funded research projects related to executive function, treatment evaluation and child development.

Louis Pellegrino, M.D., is a pediatrician who completed subspecialty training in Neurodevelopmental Pediatrics at the University of Rochester, New York. Following his fellowship training, he joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine as an assistant professor and was Medical Director of the Cerebral Palsy Program at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Children's Seashore House. He is now Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He has written extensively on the subject of cerebral palsy and maintains cerebral palsy as a primary focus in his clinical, teaching, and academic pursuits, working in a variety of medical and educational settings in collaboration with many different professionals who devote themselves to the care of children with developmental disabilities. Dr. Pellegrino is board-certified in pediatrics and is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine, and the Society for Developmental Pediatrics. He lives in Hillsborough, New Jersey with his wife, Joan, and daughter, Elizabeth.

Bruce K. Shapiro, M.D., is Professor of Pediatrics, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, The Arnold J. Capute, M.D., M.P.H. Chair in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities, and Vice President of Training, The Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, Maryland.