Peter de Jong studies the development of basic skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic, as well as the attendant educational problems. His interests cover a wide range of related issues, from aetiology and diagnostics to the prevention and treatment of learning disorders. Professor de Jong is interested especially in the way in which teaching can influence the acquisition of basic skills and remedy or prevent learning disorders. His research centres around the cognitive processes that determine the development of the various basic skills. Knowledge about those processes is essential to efforts aimed at improving the diagnostics of learning disorders and designing effective teaching methods. De Jong also studies ways in which motivational and social processes could further help to enhance the effectiveness of teaching.

De Jong was appointed university lecturer at the UvA’s Child Development & Education department in 1999, and has been senior university lecturer at that department since 2001. He is in charge of the ‘Onderwijsleerprocessen en Onderwijsleerproblemen’[1] programme. Prior to his appointment at the UvA, Peter De Jong was associated with the CITO testing and assessment company in Arnhem and with VU University Amsterdam. De Jong also holds several ancillary positions within the academic community, including that of secretary to the Stichting Dyslexie Nederland and member of the board of the Institute for the Study of Education and Human Development (ISED), a Dutch national research school. He is a member of the editorial board of several international journals and associate editor of a leading journal entitled Scientific Studies of Reading. Previously he served on the board of the international Society for the Scientific Study of Reading (SSSR). De Jong has published articles in a range of scientific journals, including  Scientific Studies of Reading,the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and the Journal of Educational Psychology.