Dr. Haynes received his Baccalaureate and Doctoral degrees from Harvard University (1977, 1994) and his Master of Science degree from San Francisco State University (1981). His University degrees have all focused on relationships among speech, language and learning disabilities. Dr. Haynes served variously as Tutor, Teacher, Research Coordinator and Director of Speech-Language Services at the Landmark School in Massachusetts from 1979-1991.
During this period, Dr. Haynes and colleagues developed one of the first language-based curricula for children with dyslexia and expressive language impairments.
After joining the MGH Institute of Health Professions in June of 1991, Dr. Haynes collaborated with Dr. Pamela Hook and colleagues to design and establish coursework and placements in order to offer dual Teacher Certification in both Speech-Language and in Reading with a unitary curriculum. Dr. Haynes teaches courses in spoken and written language disorders and in language, culture and cognition. In addition, he supervises graduate students in the in the Institute's Speech-Language and Literacy Center and is an Associate of the Institute's Hanson Initiative for Language and Literacy (HILL).
Dr. Haynes has been Principal or Co-Principal Investigator on over $1,450,000 of externally funded studies. His research interests include multilingual and cross-cultural issues in reading development and methods for teaching oral and written language expression.
For his sabbatical in 2007, Dr. Haynes studied Spanish-English biliteracy issues with Dr. Esther Geva at the University of Toronto, Dr. Sharon Vaughn and colleagues at UT Austin, and Elsa Cardenas Hagan in Brownsville, Texas. During this same period, he worked with an international team of colleagues in Kuwait to develop a documentary film on learning disabilities in Arabic. In September of 2007, Dr. Haynes and colleagues Gad Elbeheri and Abdessatar Mahfoudhi initiated a five-year Arab Fund- and UNDP- supported project to develop a multisensory structured language (MSL) program for Arabic.
In a related project, Dr. Haynes is collaborating with international colleagues to develop diagnostic measures for early prediction of reading disabilities in Arabic.
Dr. Haynes serves as Global Advisor to the Board of Directors of the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) and has chaired or co-chaired several international conferences on dyslexia. He has authored or co-authored 39 publications, has delivered 11 keynote addresses nationally and internationally, and has given more than 100 invited presentations to national and international audiences. While he enjoys research, his heart is in the interface of theory and practice.