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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.

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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.