Intellectual and Developmental Disability News

The Kansas University Center on Developmental Disabilities has received a five-year, $2.9 million federal grant to expand work that supports people with disabilities and their families throughout Kansas

The University of Kansas has awarded the KU Life Span Institute a $3 million grant to expand the organization’s capacity, staff, recruitment, and training in intellectual and developmental disability research. 

LAWRENCE — A research-based assessment of self-determination is effective with deaf youth and speakers of American Sign Language, a new study from the University of Kansas and the University of Texas at Austin has shown.

One of only three federally funded longitudinal data projects of national significance that collects and analyzes how public funds are expended on services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities has moved to the University of Kansas, building on 60 years of work in the field at KU.

An established KU research program that surveys Americans with disabilities about their health has been awarded a $600,000 grant to document experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, including those of marginalized populations within the disability community, such as LGBTQ+ individuals.

Stay-Play-Talk with iPad: A Communication Intervention for Children with Autism and Peer Buddies is recruiting participants

Research has shown that when students with disabilities shape their own learning, career and life goals, they attain higher levels of achievement than when following routine curriculum and plans. A University of Kansas researcher has earned a grant to test an evidenced-based intervention designed to enhance self-determination in community-based settings for adolescents with autism to improve education, community participation, and physical and mental health outcomes.

Sensorimotor issues aren’t well understood in people with autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, yet they are important because they can be observed before social and communication indicators for the disorder, and they can predict worse functional outcomes. Such skills can impact everything from handwriting to zipping up a coat to language development, with implications for education and independence over a person’s lifetime.

As the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered schools and forced many children with autism spectrum disorder to be schooled at home, professionals and families became concerned that children with disabilities might not be receiving adequate and specialized instruction because teachers had limited time or resources needed to support all children and parents.

Brian Boyd, director of the Juniper Gardens Children’s Project at the KU Life Span Institute, was invited by Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind Sesame Street, to join an advisory meeting on May 18th to discuss recommendations for new resources for Sesame Street and Autism: See Amazing in All Children.