In a new study published in the journal Pediatrics, Paul T. Shattuck, Ph.D., professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis, found that families with similar demographics and nature of their children’s special needs have different out-of-pocket health expenditures depending on the state in which they live. “This is one of the few studies that focuses on families’ costs when caring for children with special needs, rather than the overall cost for society as a whole,” he says. Shattuck notes that wealthier states tend to have a lower average extra cost for caring for a child with special needs. “At the low end, families in Mass. paid an average of $560 for out-of-pocket medical expenses,” he says. “At the high end, families in Georgia shouldered an average of $970 in additional care expenses.”
Editor’s note: A complete rankings table is available.
The sound of a noisy Chicago restaurant during the breakfast rush — the clang of plates and silverware and the clamor of many voices — was the crucial test of new hearing aid technology in a study conducted by researchers at the School of Medicine. The study showed that the hearing aids worked well in a noisy environment — the most challenging test for a hearing aid.
In a new study published in the journal Pediatrics, Paul T. Shattuck, Ph.D., professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis, found that families with similar demographics and nature of their children’s special needs have different out-of-pocket health expenditures depending on the state in which they live. “This is one of the few studies that focuses on families’ costs when caring for children with special needs, rather than the overall cost for society as a whole,” he says. Shattuck notes that wealthier states tend to have a lower average extra cost for caring for a child with special needs. “At the low end, families in Massachusetts paid an average of $560 for out-of-pocket medical expenses,” he says. “At the high end, families in Georgia shouldered an average of $970 in additional care expenses.” Editor’s note: Video and a complete rankings table are available.
Lorser Feitelson, *Dichotomic Organization*From painting and architecture to music, film, furniture and the graphic arts, 1950s Los Angeles was an epicenter of American modernism. This fall the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will present Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury, a sprawling multimedia exhibition that investigates how the sleek West Coast aesthetic — at once playful and poised, laid-back and sharply articulated — emerged as cultural shorthand for crisp sophistication.
The News & Information Web site at Washington University in St. Louis provides the images below for free use by media for purposes of news coverage of the exhibition Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture, on view at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum Sept. 19, 2008, to Jan. 5, 2009. All […]
Image courtesy of Richard AbramsTo see objects better, take matters into your own hands.WUSTL psychologists have shown that to see objects better, you should take the matter into your own hands. Humans are compelled to closely analyze objects near our hands, they suggest, because we have a non-conscious, almost reflexive need to figure out how to handle nearby items or to provide protection against them. Recognizing that the location of your hands influences what you see is a new insight into the wiring of the brain, one that may even offer scientific support for California’s new ban on driving with hand-held cell phones.
The School of Medicine will receive approximately $9 million over 5 years to investigate new ways to diagnose and treat stroke. The new research center will become part of a national network of stroke centers.
Medical science may be a significant step closer to climbing into the driver’s seat of an important class of immune cells, researchers at the School of Medicine report in Nature Immunology.
Baseball diamonds are a left-hander’s best friend. That’s because the game was designed to make a lefty the “Natural,” according to David A. Peters, Ph.D., the McDonnell Douglas Professor of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis and über baseball fan. Peters is a mechanical engineer who specializes in aircraft and helicopter engineering and has a different approach to viewing America’s Favorite Pastime.
Compact, bedside brain-activity monitors detected most seizures in at-risk infants, researchers at the School of Medicine showed. That means the compact units could assist clinicians in monitoring for electrical seizures until confirmation with conventional EEG (electroencephalography), the researchers assert in an article published in the June issue of Pediatrics.