While learning and teaching difficulties in genetics have been abundantly explored and described, there has been less focus on the development and field-testing of strategies to address them. To inform the design of such a strategy a review study, focus group interviews with teachers, a case study of a traditional series of genetics lessons,…

Background: Longitudinal pediatric neuroimaging studies have demonstrated increasing volumes of white matter and regionally-specific inverted U shaped developmental trajectories of gray matter volumes during childhood and adolescence. Studies of monozygotic and dyzygotic twins during this developmental period allow exploration of genetic and…

The current review focuses on the construct of psychopathy, conceptualized as a clinical entity that is fundamentally distinct from a heterogeneous collection of syndromes encompassed by the term "conduct disorder". We will provide an account of the development of psychopathy at multiple levels: ultimate causal (the genetic or social primary…

Background: Previous research suggests that the phenotype associated with Asperger's syndrome (AS) includes difficulties in understanding the mental states of others, leading to difficulties in social communication and social relationships. It has also been suggested that the first-degree relatives of those with AS can demonstrate similar…

The purpose of this article is to illustrate and demonstrate the use of the Cultural Genogram (CG) in a graduate-level course in gender and culture for family therapists-in-training at a large Midwestern university's accredited program in family therapy. Although the importance of the CG as a training tool is delineated by Hardy and Laszloffy,…

Universal newborn screening programs for metabolic disorders are typically described as a triumph of medicine and public policy in the US over the last 50 years. Advances in science and technology, including the Human Genome Project, offer the opportunity to expand universal newborn screening programs to include many additional metabolic and…

Neuromaturation is the functional development of the central nervous system (CNS). It is by its very nature a dynamic process, a continuous interaction between the genome and first the intrauterine environment, then the extrauterine environment. Understanding neuromaturation and being able to measure it is fundamental to infant neurodevelopmental…

As students apply their knowledge of scientific concepts and of science as a method of inquiry, learning becomes relevant. This laboratory exercise is designed to foster students' understanding of the genetics of quantitative traits and of the nature of science as a method of inquiry by engaging them in a real-world business scenario. During the…

The objective of this review is to clarify the role of matching in family genetic studies of autism as a way of defining endophenotypes for linkage analysis. The concept of a confounding variable is reviewed and the importance of considering these in family studies of three endophenotypes in autism are considered: cognitive/language impairments,…

Williams syndrome (WS) is often cited as the prime example within developmental disorders of the dissociation of language from other cognitive skills, particularly from visuo-motor skills. This claim has been responsible for the challenges posed by this population to cognitive theories and to models of language acquisition. Two Hebrew-speaking…

We investigated infant precursors of low language scores in early childhood. The sample included 373 probands in 130 monozygotic (MZ) and 109 same-sex dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs in which at least one member of the pair scored in the lowest 15th percentile of a control sample on a general language factor derived from tester-administered tests at…

Recent advances in genomics and structural biology have resulted in an unprecedented increase in biological data available from Internet-accessible databases. In order to help students effectively use this vast repository of information, undergraduate biology students at Drake University were introduced to bioinformatics software and databases in…

This article describes a new curriculum which explores a disturbing side of the Progressive Era. The national education program Facing History and Ourselves is a 25-year-old organization best known for its trenchant examination of the Holocaust and other genocide campaigns. Facing History discovered in the course of that work that many of the…

The Faculty Institutes for Reforming Science Teaching (FIRST II) network was established in 1998 by ecologists accustomed to conducting their research in the field. The original impetus behind establishing FIRST was to engage biology faculty in active, inquiry-based science teaching, first in the field, an ideal environment for cooperative…

This article presents an overview of some methods and results from our continuing studies of genetic and environmental influences on dyslexia, and on individual differences across the normal range that have been conducted over the past 25 years in the Colorado Learning Disabilities Research Center (CLDRC) and in related projects. CLDRC…