In 1972, Nancy Reyzer had only been home in Chicago a couple of days with her newborn son, John, when she received an unexpected and alarming phone call from her son’s doctor. The doctor said that her son may have a condition called phenylketonuria and that they needed to come into the clinic immediately.
50th Anniversary
Leading by Example: A Spotlight on Each of Waisman’s Directors
The Waisman Center has a long history of excellent and remarkable leadership. Each director of the center has played a pivotal role in advancing Waisman’s research, service, training, and outreach efforts. This article highlights the Waisman Center’s directors, both past and present, that have allowed the center to proudly follow its mission of advancing knowledge of human development, developmental disabilities, and neurodegenerative diseases.
Seth Pollak: A career dedicated to understanding child emotion
The fun decals on the colorful walls and the cheerful environment gives it away, the third floor of the Waisman Center is dedicated to children. This space is where Seth Pollak, PhD, has spent most of his career studying child emotion, and how early life experiences shape the brain during development.
The Little Listeners Project: studying language development in toddlers with autism
Even through cute but unintelligible babbles, infants are hard at work learning how to become successful communicators.
SALT & PEPPER: Seasoned tools to better understand speech and language disorders
We might know salt and pepper as the dynamic duo of seasonings that adds flavor to foods, but in the language and speech research world, the duo has a different meaning.
Innovative Preschool Education and Care for Kids with Disabilities at the Waisman Center
From the soft murmur of voices in the center’s 10 specialty clinics to the loud and steady hum of the MRI on the first floor, the Waisman Center is full of sounds.
Building bridges between disciplines: Marsha Mailick’s interdisciplinary research and leadership at the Waisman Center
Multiple angles of vision all focused on a common question is what attracted Marsha Mailick, PhD, emeritus vice chancellor for research and graduate education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to the Waisman Center more than 35 years ago.
Transitioning Together helps adolescents with autism and their families gear up for adulthood
The Transitioning Together curriculum is adaptable to different settings, including clinical settings and school settings. Because of its unique design and positive impacts, it has been adopted in 11 states outside of Wisconsin, and Canada.
Waisman investigator is only steps away from creating a potential treatment for Parkinson’s disease
When Su-Chun Zhang, MD, PhD, picked up the phone to answer a call in 2001, he could barely understand the man speaking on the other line. “I could not hear his voice clearly,” says Zhang, a Waisman investigator and professor of neuroscience and neurology. It turns out that the man, who was calling from Texas, was on a ventilator which was garbling his voice.
Understanding autism from the minute to the masses: Autism research at the Waisman Center
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is an intricate and complicated diagnosis. The spectrum of presentations and severity is as expansive as the theorized causes. Autism’s complexity and breadth of impacts on a person’s life means that it has a multitude of facets to investigate.