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Lyda Hill Philanthropies Awards Scottish Rite for Children $1 Million to Study ACL Injury Prevention in Young Female Athletes

Lyda Hill Philanthropies Awards Scottish Rite for Children $1 Million to Study ACL Injury Prevention in Young Female Athletes

by | Sep 2, 2025 | Press Coverage, Sports Medicine

Groundbreaking studies will address the ACL epidemic in active adolescent females by using movement science

Movement science researchers at Scottish Rite for Children have received a $1 million grant from Lyda Hill Philanthropies to fund, in part, two projects addressing the concerning rise of ACL injuries in young female athletes. According to studies published in The American Journal of Sports Medicine, adolescent female athletes are at the highest risk of suffering an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury: 29 times more likely than adult women and eight times more likely than their adolescent male counterparts.

The grant supports Scottish Rite’s initiative to find new ways to combat this ACL injury epidemic, and the studies it funds will leverage technology and clinical collaboration to identify effective prevention tactics. The team will look at how to reduce ACL injury risk in adolescent female athletes by tracking and syncing their menstrual cycles to a training program, and using the Movement Science Lab to simulate and test real-time decisions made in sports that may lead to or prevent injury. A portion of funds will also support overall injury prevention efforts.

“Because of this generous grant from Lyda Hill Philanthropies, our expert team is able to conduct vital research that will improve the care of young athletes,” says Scottish Rite for Children President/CEO Robert L. Walker. “We are grateful for the foundation’s support in this significant initiative to reduce sport-related injuries in young female athletes.”

Despite decades of research, significant disparities remain regarding ACL injury risk in female athletes. This problem has recently received international attention, and several institutions have begun to investigate the link between ACL injuries and the menstrual cycle in adult female athletes. However, few studies include adolescent female athletes, leaving a gap in the understanding of how hormone fluctuations affect how the body moves, performs and experiences the pressures of sport.

Under the leadership of Movement Science Division Director Sophia Ulman, Ph.D., the first study uses menstrual cycle tracking alongside neuromuscular training to better understand and adapt to the body’s physiological changes throughout the cycle. Early findings show that during the early follicular phase, right after menstruation begins, teen girls can experience up to a 42% increase in knee joint laxity, or looseness, which may raise their risk of ACL injuries by more than four times.

“Our last two years of preliminary work has highlighted how much research is still needed in this area,” Dr. Ulman says. “ With this study, instead of continuing to research why female athletes experience eight times more ACL injuries than males, we are asking, ‘How do we address this problem?’”

Participants in this study will track their menstrual cycle, allowing researchers to detect changes throughout different cycle phases. The neuromuscular training will adjust based on the cycle, using tailored strengthening exercises during the follicular phase and stability and balance exercises during the luteal phase, which is the second half of the cycle following ovulation. This approach targets phase-specific biomechanical risk factors unique to female athletes.

“Mirroring the rise in youth sports, especially at the competitive level, ACL injuries in the U.S. have doubled in the past two decades,” Dr. Ulman says. “The last 20 years of research into ACL injuries have clearly identified different outcomes based on the sex of the athlete. With this study, we aim to find a way to combat the higher injury risks seen in girls.”

The research team also includes pediatric sports medicine surgeon and Medical Director of Clinical Research Henry B. Ellis, M.D., along with biomechanists, bioengineers and a physical therapist on the Movement Science team. In addition to their work at Scottish Rite, Ulman and Ellis hold faculty positions at UT Southwestern Medical Center’s Department of Orthopaedic Surgery.

“Young female athletes are at particularly high risk for serious injuries when playing competitive pivoting sports such as soccer and basketball,” Dr. Ellis says. “Our goal, through comprehensive multidisciplinary research, is to learn as much as we can about these injuries in hopes to provide families, coaches, athletic trainers and anyone involved in youth sports tools to prevent injuries in female athletes.”

The menstrual cycle study will recruit female high school athletes ages 14 to 19 who play basketball and/or soccer to participate in an eight-week preseason training program that will be led by their high school coaches and supported by Scottish Rite’s Movement Science staff. Taking place at their schools, which span the socioeconomic spectrum, girls will be tested both pre- and post-training to determine if the program reduces injury risk for the sports season.In the second study, researchers will use competition-like scenarios to identify modifiable biomechanical risk factors.

Young female athletes will be actively tested using alternating lights and actions during game-time scenarios, simulating the way the brain makes real-time decisions in competitive sport. Dual task exercises, such as memorizing color patterns while landing from a jump or moving in the direction of a light when it flashes, causes the athlete to make split-second decisions, like they would when deciding to pass the ball to a teammate during a soccer game. Scottish Rite’s team is studying how their body moves differently during these moments and how the athlete’s risk for injury may increase when their attention is divided. The data collected will help develop new rehabilitation protocols and return to play criteria, with the overarching goal of reducing the high rates of ACL reinjury.

To learn more about Scottish Rite’s Center for Excellence in Sports Medicine, please visit https://scottishriteforchildren.org/care/sports-medicine/.

Scottish Rite for Children Creates Web-Based Dyslexia Program to Meet Growing Demand

Scottish Rite for Children Creates Web-Based Dyslexia Program to Meet Growing Demand

by | Apr 21, 2025 | Dyslexia & Learning Disorders, Press Coverage

Scottish Rite for Children has expanded its award-winning suite of dyslexia curricula with the launch of a web-based intervention that reduces teacher training time and cost while preserving high-quality, evidence-based instruction. The new curriculum cuts teacher training time from two years to 10 days by integrating a web-based virtual instructor who co-teaches each lesson. The research-tested curriculum accelerates student outcomes and gives school districts greater flexibility to meet the increasing demand for dyslexia intervention.

Bridges: A Dyslexia Intervention Connecting Teacher, Avatar and Student was written by the experts at Scottish Rite’s Luke Waites Center for Dyslexia and Learning Disorders. The curriculum is based on Scottish Rite’s Take Flight program, which is the national standard for dyslexia education for children 7 and up. While Take Flight requires an academic language therapist to teach the curriculum, Bridges provides classroom and special education teachers with scripted resources, interactive tools, and a virtual co-teacher, Ms. Hallie, who consistently delivers the new learning portions of each lesson via a large screen in the classroom.

“We developed our innovative Bridges curriculum to help school districts meet the growing demand for dyslexia intervention,” said Karen Avrit, M.Ed., CALT, QI, director of Dyslexia Education at Scottish Rite. “It’s designed to be more accessible while still offering a high-quality, research-tested program. We’re delighted to see the positive feedback from administrators and teachers alike, and the students love it because it’s fun and helps them succeed.”

Avrit is a leading expert in the field of dyslexia education, writing, editing, and teaching multiple dyslexia and reading comprehension curricula, including the widely used Take Flight: A Comprehensive Intervention for Students with Dyslexia. To create Bridges, Avrit worked with a team at The University of Texas Dallas to bring Ms. Hallie to life. Now, decades of dyslexia education expertise have been captured in a state-of-the-art virtual learning tool that will help children in classrooms around the country learn to read and comprehend.

To evaluate the effectiveness of the Bridges curriculum, dyslexia researchers compared literacy outcomes for students in the Bridges program to students receiving the already highly-validated Take Flight intervention. Researchers conducted the IRB-approved study (Institutional Review Board) in public school classrooms across several North Texas-area school districts, comparing the progress of 162 students during two academic years. Results indicated that the two groups demonstrated comparatively similar growth in oral and written language skills, suggesting that the tech-assisted Bridges program and the traditional Take Flight program are similarly effective in improving literacy outcomes for students with dyslexia.

The percentage of students diagnosed with dyslexia is growing. In Texas, it doubled from 3% in 2017 to 6% in 2023. School districts are under pressure to identify and provide help for students diagnosed with dyslexia. A new Texas law passed in 2023 has brought the issue to the forefront, reshaping dyslexia education and intervention in public schools. Dyslexia education now falls under special education.

“At Scottish Rite, we are focused on giving children back their childhood, and we are proud to partner with school districts to meet the mounting needs of students with dyslexia. Our goal is to offer greater access to an evidence-based, structured program that gives students confidence and skills to learn and reach their full potential,” Avrit said.

Bridges is a two-year program designed for children ages 7 and older. Students can participate in hour-long lessons four days a week or 45-minute lessons five days a week. The virtual instructor uses 15 to 20 minutes of each lesson to deliver the more complex aspects of the dyslexia intervention. This includes the proper mouth and facial movements associated with making the correct letter sounds. The certified teacher provides live instruction based on scripted materials and interacts with students to answer questions and control the rate of instruction. This combination of teacher and avatar ensures the student receives the most consistent, accurate instruction while progressing through the curriculum at a pace that works for them. The Texas Education Agency has included the Bridges curriculum on its list of approved dyslexia interventions.

Additional information about Bridges, including its newly lowered price for the 2025-2026 school year, can be found here.

$13.5 Million Renovation Brings Leading-Edge Technology to Therapy Services at Scottish Rite for Children

$13.5 Million Renovation Brings Leading-Edge Technology to Therapy Services at Scottish Rite for Children

by | Apr 17, 2025 | Press Coverage, Therapy Services

Scottish Rite for Children in Dallas has expanded its Therapy Services department with a $13.5 million renovation. The renovation includes growing the space by 20% to 10,300 square feet and bringing in advanced rehabilitation technology. The new gym provides more space for children to move freely and engage in therapy activities while simulating real-life environments.

“This expansion supports our multidisciplinary approach to care by enhancing our therapy space and increasing our capacity for in-house services,” says Scottish Rite Chief of Staff Daniel J. Sucato, M.D., M.S. “We began offering therapy services in 1939, and we’re eager to continue our legacy of providing the best care for our patients.”

Scottish Rite’s Therapy Services Department offers both physical and occupational therapy for inpatients and outpatients. Staffed by more than 30 specialists, the department had more than 19,000 patient visits in fiscal year 2024. The therapy gym is used for everything from teaching a toddler to walk for the first time on their prosthetic leg to ensuring a young athlete is strong enough to return to their sport.

“At Scottish Rite, we treat the whole child. We understand that truly comprehensive care means seamless collaboration across disciplines,” says Charter Rushing, Director of Therapy Services. “It’s inspiring to witness physicians, advanced practice providers, nurses, prosthetists, orthotists, child life specialists, therapeutic recreation specialists, and therapists working together—often within a single appointment—to create personalized care plans.”

The new therapy gym features advanced technology, such as a robotic gait and balance system to assist patients with walking and movement training. A new interactive therapy table is also available and is designed to improve patients’ upper extremity motion, strength, coordination and cognitive skills. The table features a large touchscreen with customizable games and activities that engage patients in dynamic, task-specific training.

“Our new state-of-the-art technology has revolutionized the way we deliver therapy by making it engaging, interactive and function-focused,” says Rushing. “These advanced systems allow us to target fine and gross motor skills, coordination and strength while keeping patients motivated and actively involved in their care. These resources, combined with the expertise of our therapy team, are helping patients achieve milestones they once thought were out of reach.”

The space also includes an activities of daily living (ADL) suite with a sink, Murphy bed, mirror and dresser, which allows patients to practice personal care tasks alongside their occupational therapist. The ADL suite is also equipped with a lift system so families can learn and practice safe patient transfer techniques. Occupational therapists use the suite to work with patients and their families to improve independence with activities like grooming, dressing and transfers.

“Physical and occupational therapy services are vital for our patients,” says Scottish Rite President/CEO Robert L. Walker. “Our team is dedicated to treating the whole child – body, mind and spirit – and providing the tools children need to regain their independence, mobility, and ultimately, their childhood.”

To learn more about Therapy Services at Scottish Rite, please visit our services page here.  

NBC 5: Go Move Helps Patients with Cerebral Palsy

NBC 5: Go Move Helps Patients with Cerebral Palsy

by | Apr 8, 2025 | Press Coverage, Research & Innovation

A new website developed by Scottish Rite for Children’s senior clinical scientist Angela Shierk, Ph.D., O.T.R., is helping patients with cerebral palsy reach their goals. Cerebral Palsy is the most common motor disability in children and causes issues with movement, balance and posture. Go Move is a virtual occupational therapy tool that allows patients to perform exercises from the comfort of their home, set specific goals and track their progress.

Evvie is a Scottish Rite patient, who is using Go Move to improve her mobility by leaps and bounds. The 17-year-old credits her daily exercises with helping her achieve key milestones, such as washing her hair or tying her shoes.

Go Move is part of an international research project with partners in Turkey, Poland and Mexico. This technology is making vital care accessible to children who need it, and our team is eager to continue developing the program to help children not only in DFW, but also around the world.

Watch the full story from NBC 5.