Advancing knowledge of human development, developmental disabilities, and neurodegenerative diseases.
Imagine that you’ve been dropped into an unfamiliar country. People are speaking all around you. But you don’t recognize the sounds or objects surrounding you. You don’t even hear words; all the sounds are mushed together. It is very confusing.
March 21 is World Down Syndrome Day, designated on this date to signify the cause of Down syndrome—the presence of a third 21st chromosome (3/21). Approximately one in every 691 babies is born with Down syndrome each year with more than 400,000 individuals in the United States affected by the most commonly occurring chromosomal condition. …
Katie Sweeney, Waisman Center Communications The McPherson Eye Research Institute unveiled its new exhibit, Seeing Beyond Disabilities: Unique Insights, on January 29 in the Mandelbaum and Albert Vision Gallery at the Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research. The exhibit features artwork by individuals with developmental disabilities and includes 15 pieces from the Friends of the Waisman Center’s Harvey A. Stevens International Collection …
Inherited and acquired degenerative diseases of the retina are a significant cause of incurable vision loss worldwide. David Gamm, MD, PhD, utilizes stem cell technology to test ways to preserve or restore vision in people afflicted by blinding disorders. Gamm and 160 researchers at the Waisman Center and the McPherson Eye Research Institute work to develop treatments for …
Ruth Litovsky, PhD, a Waisman Center investigator and professor of communication sciences and disorders, is a 2014-15 Fulbright Scholar for the East-Asia Pacific Region. Litovsky is an internationally-recognized expert on auditory perception — how the brain processes sound to enable people to hear and communicate in noisy environments.
David Wargowski, MD, a clinical geneticist in the Waisman Center Medical Genetics Clinic, discusses a new autism study in the journal Nature that examines the genetic variance of family members with an autism spectrum disorder.
This story starts in 1955, upon the death of Albert Einstein, when the pathologist charged with performing the famous scientist’s autopsy stole his brain. Fast forward to the 1980s when a University of California, Berkeley scientist was studying parts of the stolen goods involved in complex thinking and discovered that the father of relativity had more of certain types of cells, called astrocytes, than other human brains studied.
More than 278 million people are affected by hearing loss caused by damaged hair cells in the inner ear that process sound to the brain. Waisman Center scientists work to research novel treatments and therapies for individuals with hearing loss that include stem cell research and cochlear implants.
Subtle interactions that demonstrate power, both verbal and nonverbal, take place in a child’s environment every day, and one UW researcher wants to know if children are actually paying attention. Through scripted scenarios geared to depict social hierarchy, assistant professor and Waisman Center investigator Kristin Shutts explored how children are sensitive to their social environment …
MADISON–In the current issue of Pediatrics, Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison clinical psychologist Megan Farley and colleagues share important insights in the paper “Identifying autism in a brief observation,” which examines how brief clinical appointments are often not long enough to determine if a child has an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), or even if a …
