About
Professor Salim Abu-Rabia is an Associate Professor Emeritus in the Department of Learning and Instructional Sciences and the Department of Special Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Israel. He has held his position at Haifa since 1994.
His research has profoundly shaped our understanding of how children and adults read Arabic — one of the world's most widely spoken languages and one with a uniquely complex orthographic system. His pioneering studies on the role of short vowels (diacritics), morphology, and diglossia in Arabic reading comprehension are foundational to the field of Arabic literacy.
Prof. Abu-Rabia is widely recognized as a leading international authority on dyslexia in Arabic and Hebrew, cross-linguistic transfer, and bilingual/multilingual reading development. His work spans Arabic, Hebrew, English, and Circassian-speaking communities, making his contributions uniquely comparative and globally significant.
He earned his Ph.D. from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto, Canada, and holds both his B.A. and M.A. from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.
His research home at Haifa is the Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities, where he has long collaborated with the Unit for the Study of the Arabic Language — the center where much of Israel's leading work on Arabic literacy, reading disability, and bilingual cognition takes place.
Career & Education
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1976–1979B.A.Ben-Gurion University of the Negev — Beersheba, Israel.
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1986–1990M.A.Ben-Gurion University of the Negev — Beersheba, Israel.
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1991–1993Ph.D.Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, Canada.
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Sept 1994Joined University of HaifaFaculty of Education — appointed to the Departments of Learning & Instructional Sciences and Special Education. Affiliated with the Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities and the Unit for the Study of the Arabic Language.
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Oct 2019Invited research seminar — UBCUniversity of British Columbia, Department of Language and Literacy Education. Seminar on cognitive retroactive transfer of language skills among bilingual readers.
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PresentAssociate Professor EmeritusUniversity of Haifa, Faculty of Education. Active research program through 2025 — most recent paper on cross-linguistic transfer from Arabic to English (Int'l J. of Bilingualism, 2025).
Research Areas
Selected Publications
Frequent Collaborators
A non-exhaustive list of researchers who have co-authored work with Prof. Abu-Rabia across Arabic reading, dyslexia, bilingualism, and cross-linguistic transfer.