Benasich received Ph.D.s from New York University in Experimental/Cognitive Neuroscience and Clinical Psychology in 1987 and also has a BSN in Nursing and fifteen years of medical experience in pediatrics. She completed her initial postdoctoral work at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she was a member of the Research Steering Committee of the Infant Health and Development Program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and a second postdoctoral fellowship under Dr. Paula Tallal at the CMBN.