Inside Waisman: Meet Lindsay McCary
As a third year graduate student in school psychology at the University of South Carolina, Lindsay McCary, PhD, was looking for a new advisor to help her with her dissertation. At the time, Jane Roberts, PhD, had just joined the Department of Psychology and had some data available on younger children with the genetic disorder fragile X syndrome (FXS). McCary was immediately fascinated by the new professor’s research because it integrated both behavioral and physiological data to examine an individual’s observable characteristics.
September 9, 2020The ECHO Effect
Project ECHO (the mantra for which is “All teach, all learn”) uses video-conferencing technology to provide education and case consultation on best practice clinical services, training, and resources for individuals with specific healthcare needs that are difficult to meet locally. The Waisman Center ECHO platform will serve as a diagnostic and treatment training hub to share the center’s expertise on intellectual and developmental disabilities, such as autism, Down syndrome, and cerebral palsy, throughout the state and beyond.
July 28, 2020Balancing act: what motor function can tell us about autism
Can the way a person moves be a key identifier of autism? It’s a question that Waisman Center investigator Brittany Travers, PhD, is trying to answer. A new paper from Travers’ lab suggests that movement patterns of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may differ from those with typical development.
June 15, 2020The Social Brain: A Beautiful Mind
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.
May 6, 2020For 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.
April 13, 2020Archery event raises funds for autism research
The nonprofit Hononegah Archery is hosting the second annual Julie’s Archers for Autism and Rock River Music festival from noon-9 p.m. on Aug. 3 at Settlers Park in Rockton. Funds raised will support autism research …
July 22, 2019How to help low-income children with autism
Speaking with Spectrum News, Waisman Center investigator Maureen Durkin describes the connections between autism prevalence numbers, socioeconomic status and race, and what the connections means for research. To read the full video, visit the Spectrum …
March 22, 2019
Connecting research and clinics to help those with autism
One of the goals of the study is to discover how genetic variations in young people with ASD are related to brain changes that lead to clinical symptoms of the disorder, such as impaired social interaction and repetitive behaviors. “If you think about it, in between genes and clinical symptoms [of ASD] are changes in brain development,” says Lainhart. “Genes first impact brain development, and as a result of changes in how the brain develops, there are clinical manifestations of what we recognize as ASD.”
January 7, 2019Families Navigate An Autism Diagnosis With Interventional Services, Networks
Waisman Center social workers Paola Perez and Erin Thomson were featured guests on the Larry Meiller Show on Wisconsin Public Radio’s the Ideas Network. Perez and Thomson discussed a broad range of autism-related topics including …
October 25, 2018Giizhik, young artist with autism, featured on WPT’s ‘Wisconsin Life”
Wisconsin Public Television’s Wisconsin Life recently featured Klawiter, a young artist with autism, who for the past decade has been designing and selling holiday cards across Sawyer County, raising awareness for autism and more than …
October 18, 2018Scientists just beginning to understand the unique health needs of adults with autism
In the 1990s, the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) among children rose sharply. These children are now entering adulthood, yet physicians and scientists know very little about the health outcomes they might face. Most studies of health have focused on children and adolescents.
May 10, 2018
New CDC report finds increasing prevalence of autism in school-age children
An estimated 1 in 59 school-aged children have been identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The latest estimate is higher than the prevalence in the CDC’s 2016 report (1 in 68 children).
April 30, 2018- More Autism posts
Advancing knowledge of human development, developmental disabilities, and neurodegenerative diseases.