She is best known for playing Alex Dunphy in the ABC sitcom Modern Family (2009–2020), for which she and her several costars won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series four consecutive times from 2010 to 2013.

[3][4][5] Winter obtained her first entertainment industry job in a Cool Whip commercial advertisement in 2002 when she was four years old.

She has continued to work in TV animation, including providing the voice of Marina on Disney Junior's Jake and the Never Land Pirates.

She also lent her voice to characters in two animated films - Disney's Bambi II and Blue Sky's Ice Age: The Meltdown.

For her leading role in the film The Chaperone, she was nominated at the Young Artist Awards 2012 as "Best Actress in a Motion Picture".

[8] In 2012, Winter's sister Shanelle Workman filed to become her guardian, alleging that their mother had been physically and emotionally abusive.

"[15][16][17] Describing the improvement that the surgery had on her both physically and psychologically, she told Glamour magazine that it was "amazing to finally feel right.

"[15] At the 2016 Screen Actors Guild Awards, Winter gained media attention for wearing a Romona Kaveza gown[18] that revealed her surgical scars.