Discovery in the service of human health and development
The Power of Parenting
Beginning in 1995 with the seminal study of vocabulary development by Betty Hart and Todd Risley that revealed a 30 million word gap in what children from the least and more advantaged homes heard by age 3, Life Span Institute researchers have investigated the power of parenting. Most recently, researchers Steven Warren and Nancy Brady published the results of another milestone study: this time a unique longitudinal study of families whose children (and in some cases, the mothers themselves) have Fragile X. Read More
The Brain-Computer Interface
A brain-computer interface could unlock minds silenced by stroke and ALS.
Not even Stephen Hawking uses the kind of sci-fi communication interface that University of Kansas neuroscientist Jonathan Brumberg is developing. Hawking uses a cheek muscle to control his voice device. But Brumberg wants to give individuals with no voluntary movement at all the ability to control a communication device via a brain-computer (BCI) interface—with their thoughts alone. And what would set this apart from other speech BCIs is that it would allow an individual to speak through a speech synthesizer in real time. Read More
Redefining school inclusion and taking it national
The aptly named SWIFT Education Center (School-wide Integrated Framework for Transformation), funded by one of the largest grants in KU history of $24 million, is rapidly hitting its goals across the country. Read More
Teaching teachers to manage classrooms
What if a teacher could manage a class like clockwork—including those students with challenging behaviors—and even when teaching tough lessons? That’s the way CW-FIT works. Read More
Putting students in charge of themselves with I-Connect
Howard Wills is putting high school students with emotional and behavioral problems in charge of themselves. Wills directed the development of a web-based application called called I-Connect. Read More