Research Frontiers

The early years of a child's life are an exciting and promising time. Parents eagerly anticipate seeing their child's first steps and hearing her first words. But what happens when time passes and these milestones don't occur? When should parents seek help, and where can they find it?

Young children go through all sorts of phases, some of which can be alarming for parents. Tantrums, defiance, refusing to eat all can cause a great deal of stress. With time and patience, most of these habits fade quickly. A more disturbing problem for many families is self-injurious behavior like head banging, skin scratching or eye poking.

Learning disabilities can be frustrating for the children who have them as well as for the parents trying to help. Not physically obvious, learning disabilities often create significant difficulties with academic and social skills when they are not properly identified or treated.

Most everyone knows the classic symptoms of autism: poor communication and difficulty interacting with others. Most treatment and research efforts focus on these deficits, but another area of concern is motor skill development.

Most adults cannot recall exactly how they learned to read, or even remember a time when they couldn't. Reading is so integral to our lives that most of us take it for granted. It's fundamental to a quality education, essential to our jobs and an escape from mundane day-to-day rituals into worlds of adventure, glamour and intrigue.

Are your genes turned on?

When scientists began The Human Genome Project in the early 1990s, their hope was to discover and interpret the entire blueprint for life, to decode not only how the human body is put together, but also to find the genetic cause and cure for every disease. Imagine their surprise when they discovered not the anticipated 100,000 genes, but rather 20,000 genes making up the human genome—about the same as that of fish and mice, and less than many plants!

In 2009, the FDA approved the use of human embryonic stem cell-based therapy for the treatment of patients with spinal cord injuries. Cell-based therapy — the use of human cells transplanted into the human body to promote healing — is not a futuristic concept. Bone marrow transplant, for example, is a cell-based therapy that was proven to be safe and effective more than 50 years ago. Stem cells are particularly useful in these cell-based therapies because they are both immortal and flexible, meaning they can divide without end and they can become almost any type of cell.