Skip to content

The latest news from the UW

December 4, 2001

UW establishes Center on Infant Mental Health and Development

To focus on the social and emotional health and well-being of the youngest members of society, a new Center on Infant Mental Health and Development is being established at the University of Washington. The center will place special emphasis on vulnerable children at developmental risk for various reasons, including mental health issues faced by their mothers or other caregivers, an absence of social supports, conditions of poverty and homelessness, and parental substance abuse.

Autistic preschoolers have larger-than-normal brains, can’t distinguish emotions from facial photographs

Preschool-age children with autism exhibit no difference in brain activity when they are shown photographs of faces displaying different emotions, and their brains are larger than normal, according to new research at the University of Washington’s Autism Center.

December 3, 2001

Improving quality of child protective services in Washington, Oregon, Alaska is goal of $2.2 million grant

Aside from the Internal Revenue Service, perhaps no government agencies are the object of more scorn than state child protective services organizations (CPS). To help these agencies in Washington, Oregon and Alaska improve their services, the Children’s Bureau of the federal Department of Health and Human Service has awarded the University of Washington a $2.2 million grant over five years to establish a CPS Quality Improvement Center, called Frontline Connections.

Newsmakers

LANGUAGE LEARNING: The co-director of the UW’s Center for Mind, Brain and Learning says that babies learn to distinguish sounds made in their native language from sounds in other languages long before they learn to speak.

Etc.

PHILANTHROPIC FAMILY: Ellen Ferguson, community relations director for the Burke Museum, and her family were recently honored at National Philanthropy Day ceremonies in Seattle as the state’s outstanding philanthropic family.

November 28, 2001

Treatment reduces risk of heart attack by 60 to 90 percent, reverses arterial plaque buildup; antioxidant vitamins diminish beneficial effect

Treatment with a combination of statin and niacin can slash the risk of a fatal or non-fatal heart attack or hospitalization for chest pain by 70 percent among patients who are likely to suffer heart attacks and/or death from coronary heart disease, according to a study by University of Washington researchers in the Nov. 29 New England Journal of Medicine. Cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 killer in most industrialized countries.

November 27, 2001

Take the Web test to measure your prejudice against Arab Muslims

American attitudes about Arab Muslims may have changed or been colored as a result of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. How much they changed is difficult to assess, but individuals have the opportunity to measure their own level of unconscious prejudice toward Arab Muslims by taking a test on the Internet developed by University of Washington and Yale University psychologists.

November 20, 2001

UW speech traces history of African-American nurses in Seattle

University of Washington School of Nursing Professor Lois Price-Spratlen will discuss the experiences of early African-American nurses in Seattle who overcame racial discrimination and adversity to achieve their dreams. Her free public presentation at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 27, in Hogness Auditorium at the UW Health Sciences Center is titled “Seattle African-American Nurses: How They Have Overcome.” It is the third in a series of public lectures sponsored as a community service by the UW School of Nursing.