Kennedy’s other moon shot: The origins of intellectual and developmental disabilities research centers and the Waisman Center

When President Kennedy made his inaugural speech in 1961, there was no mention of initiatives on intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs). Yet, the efforts by his administration and the Kennedy family to improve the lives of individuals with disabilities and their families are one of their most enduring legacies. The Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison bears the indelible fingerprints of those efforts.

Waisman postdoctoral training program: Training the next generation of IDD researchers

The first two years of the grant provided funding for two seminars in an academic year, but in a short span, seeing the tangible benefits these had, they expanded from two lectures a year, to two a month.

Waisman investigators receive grant to improve brain imaging in young children

A team of investigators at the Waisman Center was recently awarded a $2.5 million grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health to both improve brain imaging techniques for infants and build a quantitative atlas of typical early brain development.

The beginning of full community inclusion: TIES supports individuals with disabilities inclusion in community since 1986

Around 1986, there was a paradigm shift across the country to bring individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) out of institutions and inclusively integrate them into the community.