Isabelle Liberman

Isabelle Yoffe Liberman (1918 - 1990) was an American psychologist, born in Latvia, who was an expert on reading disabilities, including dyslexia. Isabelle Liberman received her bachelor's degree from Vassar College and her doctorate from Yale University. She was a professor at the University of Connecticut from 1966 through 1987 and a research associate at the Haskins Laboratories.

Along with her husband, Alvin Liberman, she elucidated the "alphabetic principle" and its relationship to phonemic awareness and phonological awareness in reading. In 1988 she received the Samuel T. Orton Award of the Orton Dyslexic Society for contributing to wider understanding of reading disabilities. Her son Mark Liberman is Trustee Professor of Phonetics and Professor of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. Her son M. Charles Liberman is Professor of Otology and Laryngology at Harvard Medical School. Her daughter, Sarah Ash, is an Associate Professor of Nutrition in the Department of Food, Bioprocessing, and Nutrition Sciences at North Carolina State University.