Advancing knowledge of human development, developmental disabilities, and neurodegenerative diseases.
When auditory feedback is perturbed in a consistent way, speakers learn to adjust their speech to compensate, a process known as sensorimotor adaptation. Typically, feedback perturbation experiments employ a transformation that targets a single vowel, or that affects all vowels in the same way, resulting in a uniform change across the vowel space.
Schwa is cross-linguistically described as having a variable target. The present study examines whether speakers are sensitive to whether their auditory feedback matches their target when producing schwa.
The Communication Development Program (CDP) is an outreach program of the Waisman Center UCEDD at University of Wisconsin, Madison. This program was developed over 30 years ago in partnership with the Dane County Department of Human Services, and specifically the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) unit. The mission of CDP is to enhance community participation, …
The FMR1 gene on the X chromosome has varying numbers of CGG repeats. The modal number is 30, and expansion to > 200 results in fragile X syndrome, but the copy number extends down to 6. Past research suggests that individuals whose CGGs are in the “low zone” (LZ; defined here as ≤ 25 CGGs) may be more environmentally-reactive than those with normal-range repeats (26-40 CGGs) – a gene x environment interaction
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.
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.
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.
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 more apparent than ever right now. Though the ceremony to recognize this year’s winners of Academic Staff Excellence Awards has …
“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 developmental behavioral pediatrician in the Waisman Clinics, using telehealth – a remote and interactive way to administer healthcare services. The visit …
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 of Psychology. At UW–Madison’s Waisman Center, he researches the link between childhood stress and well-being. Pollak’s team has uncovered the …
