What images come to mind when you hear the phrase social brain? Do you think of children running around on a playground laughing together? Do you think of problem solving or imagine colorful brain scans? Do you think of autism? These are the questions that inspired a breadth of autism research that was recently evaluated by a team of Waisman scientists and compiled into a new literature review.
Year: 2020
Grant awarded for eye disease research
A big congratulations to researcher Kim Edwards and Waisman investigator David Gamm, MD, PhD, on winning the inaugural Randy Wheelock Research Award. Gamm is also an associate professor of ophthalmology and visual science as well as the director of the McPherson Eye Research Institute.
Ruth Litovsky, PhD – Slide of the Week
Cochlear implants are provided to people with significant hearing loss, in order to promote communication using oral language. Two (bilateral) implants are provided to promote sound localization and speech understanding in noise.
Waisman teacher recognized with staff excellence award
Academic staff members bring UW–Madison’s mission to life — they are gifted teachers, world-class researchers and dedicated administrators. None of that has changed with COVID-19. If anything, their creativity and dedication is more needed and …
Spurred by COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth becomes mainstream at Madison clinics, hospitals
“It was awesome. It saves us from having to take time off work and having to travel,” said Nicole Gantz, whose 8-year-old son Joshua has Down syndrome and an attention disorder. Nicole and Joshua visited with Maria Stanley, a …
Seth Pollak elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Six University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, including Waisman Center investigator and psychologist Seth Pollak, PhD. Pollak is the College of Letters & Science Distinguished Professor …
James Li, PhD – Slide of the Week
There is converging evidence that mental disorders are more optimally conceptualized in a hierarchical framework (i.e., the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology, HiTOP) that transcends the categorical boundaries of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). However, the majority of this evidence comes from studies that draw upon predominantly European American or Caucasian populations.
Margarita Kaushanskaya, PhD – Slide of the Week
The current study examined the effects of dual language exposure on executive function in 5- to 11-year-old Spanish-English bilingual children with different language skills. Dual language exposure was measured via parent report and was operationalized as the proportion of time spent in an environment where both English and Spanish were present.
For caregivers of children with autism, COVID-19 conditions can present extra challenges
It’s hard to think of an aspect of life that hasn’t changed since the novel coronavirus began spreading across the globe. Many aspects of life — from work, to school, to travel, shopping and socializing — are dramatically different than they were just a few months ago.
Katie Hustad, PhD – Slide of the Week
We sought to establish normative growth curves for intelligibility development for the speech of typical children as revealed by objectively-based orthographic transcription of elicited single word and multiword utterances by naïve listeners.