Jose Pablo Escobar

Background

I am a psychologist from Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, in Mexico. Since the beginning of my professional career, educational psychology has been my primary area of interest and professional development. My first work experiences took place at a psychological support center in Tepoztlán, Morelos, where my interest in learning difficulties and in the factors affecting children’s educational development first emerged and grew stronger. This interest later led me to move to Chile to begin a Master’s degree in Educational Psychology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, where I later continued my doctoral training and earned a PhD in Psychology.

From my graduate studies onward, I researched the precursor skills of reading, with particular emphasis on the cognitive processes that explain both its acquisition and development, especially among students with learning difficulties. During my doctoral training, I joined the Center for the Development of Inclusion Technologies (CEDETi UC) at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile as a staff researcher. At this center, I led teams and research projects focused on understanding how technological tools can help optimize the learning of reading and mathematics in students with special needs. In parallel, I took part in developing instruments for assessing reading skills, both through traditional formats and through technology-mediated tools. This experience allowed me to connect research on the cognitive processes involved in learning with the development of strategies for their assessment and support.

Neuropsychology entered my professional trajectory in Chile and, from a cognitive perspective, steered my research work toward the study of executive functions and their relation with reading comprehension. This interest led me to connect with neuropsychology research teams from various countries and, in particular, with the Latin American Society of Neuropsychology, of whose peer-reviewed scientific journal I have been editor-in-chief for several years.

I am currently a faculty member at the School of Psychology of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, principal investigator and research line lead at the Millennium Institute for the Study of Literacy and Transformative Learning (MISTRALL). In this role, my work focuses on developing reading screening instruments that allow for the early identification of students at risk of developing reading difficulties, as well as on designing intervention strategies that can be implemented directly within school settings.