News
Researchers Join with Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health to Monitor and Evaluate COVID-19 Response
A team from the University of Kansas Center for Community Health and Development has partnered with Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health and other community organizations to track and assess the countywide public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
KU Researchers Develop New Toolkit for Social Justice Action
When protests erupted over the death of George Floyd and ongoing systemic racism in the United States in the spring, entrepreneur David Dennis was reminded of the stories his mother had told him of the civil rights movement in the 60s. He said he hadn’t imagined that civil unrest would...
Lives Changed: Thirty Years of the ADA
On July 26, 1990, the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act marked a new era for people with disabilities. The landmark legislation prohibiting discrimination based on disability aimed to assure that that people with disabilities have the same rights and opportunities as everyone else. The law covered several areas...
KU-Lawrence School Partnership Helps Students ‘Self-Determine’ Ways to Improve Learning
When Free State High School mathematics teacher Annette McDonald first learned about a possible way to improve learning by letting students make decisions as part of the process, she was skeptical. After all, the curriculum was set, and students couldn’t just decide what they would learn. ...
Remembering Stephen Fowler: 1944-2020
On June 15, 2020, longtime Life Span Institute investigator Stephen Fowler died from complications of Parkinson’s Disease. ...
Program Helps KU Prepare Students with Intellectual Disability to Thrive Among Peers
When COVID-19 prompted the closure of the University of Kansas campus, Dana Lattin had faith that students in KU Transition to Postsecondary Education, or TPE, could adapt to their new online experiences. ...
KU Researchers Lead Effort to Monitor and Evaluate COVID-19 Response in 47 African Countries
Joe Spradlin (1930-2020) Remembering “The Conscience of the Bureau of Child Research”
On May 27, 2020, Joe Spradlin died at home with his wife of 71 years Rita by his side at age 90 in Lawrence, KS. ...
Kathryn Unruh earns first Stephen and Carolyn Schroeder Young Investigator Award
Assistant Research Professor Kathryn Unruh has received the inaugural Stephen and Carolyn Schroeder Young Investigator Award for Research in Neurodevelopmental Disorders. Established by the former Life Span Institute director and his wife, the $10,000 award is intended for Life Span Institute-affiliated early-career investigators, post-docs, and graduate students whose work involves...
Grant aims to improve outcomes for students with disabilities at 20 charter schools across the country
KU Researchers honored for transformative research in the field of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
KU Center Joins Partnership to Increase Inclusion, Achievement in Washington Schools
Helping Every Child Thrive: An Interview with Brian Boyd of the Juniper Gardens Children's Project
For Brian Boyd, director of the Juniper Gardens Children’s Project at the KU Life Span Institute, a passion for autism research ignited at a summer camp job during his undergraduate years. It led to a career dedicated to early interventions for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and a focus...
Autism Spectrum Disorder and Interrupted Routines: Center Offers Advice for Families and Caregivers
In addition to the experience of being a parent of a child with autism, Sean is the director of community program development for the Kansas Center for Autism Research and Training, or K-CART, a research center at the Life Span Institute. The center has been fielding questions about how to...
$2.5 million grant supporting online tool to helps students understand science concepts
Study Shows LGBTQ+ Individuals with Autism Have Greater Health Disparities Than Peers
Individuals with disabilities or who identify as LGBTQ+ often encounter difficulties in navigating the American health care system. A new study from the University of Kansas has found that people with autism spectrum disorder who identify as LGBTQ+ have greater health disparities than their peers, including being denied service or...
KU wins grants to develop national trainings to support decion-making in individuals with disabilities
University of Kansas researchers have secured three grants to advance understanding of how to support people with disabilities to participate in the most important decisions about their lives. ...
Wheelchair users face barriers to access, damaged equipment when traveling
Apprehension is expected before a traveler boards a flight, whether it’s anxiety about airline safety or worrying about a delayed flight. ...
Bridging the Gap: Grant to Expand Coaching Availability to Serve Children with Autism
Two-year-old Baylee Shriner plays with toys like other children her age now, but that wasn’t the case several months ago. Baylee, who has autism spectrum disorder, had trouble interacting with the world around her and could not communicate with her mother, Linzi Shriner, of Tonganoxie, Kan. ...
Workshop to help faculty use applied improvisation to improve the communication of research
New Study Offers Data-Driven Definition of Unhealthy Yet Pervasive Hyper-Palatable Foods
A popular U.S. brand of potato chips once promoted itself with the slogan “betcha can’t eat just one!”...
Research Gauges Neurodegeneration Tied to Genetic Disorder by Measuring Motor Behavior
The neurological disorder FXTAS (pronounced “fax-tas”) stems from a genetic premutation seen in one of every 151 women and one of every 468 men, called the FMR1 premutation. ...
Scientist Honored with Early Career Award
Derek Reed, Associate Professor of Applied Behavioral Science and Scientist in the Cofrin Logan Center for Addiction Research and Treatment, is the 2019 recipient of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (FABBS) Early Career Impact Award for the Association for Behavior Analysis International. The award is presented...
KU to Host Conference on Genetic Disorders
The Kansas Center for Autism Research and Training at the University of Kansas Life Span Institute and the Kansas Chapter of the National Fragile X Foundation will co-host a conference on FMR1 gene disorders that will bring together family members, caregivers, researchers, educators, therapists and individuals who want to learn...
Technology may lead to a way for those unable to physically talk to speak virtually
A pioneering research project at KU may one day give voice to individuals robbed of their speech by neuromuscular diseases such as ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. ...
KU Names New Director, Additional Leadership for Center for Service Learning
Undergraduate Studies at the University of Kanas has named Jomella Watson-Thompson, associate professor of applied behavioral science, as director of the Center for Service Learning (CSL). ...
New Book Explores How Ordinary People Make Decisions When Confronted with Uncertainty
For decades, statisticians, economists, philosophers and mathematicians have studied how to make decisions in the face of uncertainty, and typically their analyses have focused on how to use probability theory from mathematics to harness this vexing problem. ...
Sesame Workshop Senior Vice President Will Talk About New Book Oct. 4
When Rosemarie Truglio was growing up in Hoboken, New Jersey, “Romper Room” was the closest thing to educational programming on television. Like other children across the country, she waited for the host of that "live kindergarten" program to hold up her magic mirror and call out the names of children...
Seeking a better understanding of the motor problems experienced by individuals with autism spectrum disorder
The child in the chair looks like she’s preparing to play a video game. She leans toward the monitor in a darkened room, the dim light of the screen illuminating her face. A dot appears on the screen. But instead of zapping the dot with a game controller, she tracks...