Institute Publications

At Kennedy Krieger Institute, we are inspired every day by children and adolescents who have the will to succeed, despite seemingly insurmountable circumstances. When 12-year-old Matthew Slattery emerged from a coma after a horrific car accident that left him with a traumatic brain injury, he could barely lift his finger.

At Kennedy Krieger Institute, we do far more than treat patients -- through our research, patient care, professional training, and community involvement, we strive to improve the lives of the patients, students, and families we serve.

When I started at Kennedy Krieger Middle School, I was very frustrated and angry because I did not think I needed to be here. Slowly, though, I began to see that Kennedy Krieger was the right school for me. But it took time. Today I realize that I needed to be here to get the education I needed, because I might not have done as well anywhere else.

Santa Needs Helpers

Plans are quickly coming together for the Institute's 23rd annual Festival of Trees, the largest holiday-themed festival of its kind on the East coast. The 2012 event will be held Thanksgiving weekend, November 23-25, at the Maryland State Fairgrounds, and will once again be the unofficial kickoff to the holiday season. We are currently looking for organizations and individuals who are interested in:

From the beginning, Megan Miceli’s parents knew something wasn't right.

For children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), diagnosis can be a tricky -- and not always tangible -- thing.

Like so many psychological and developmental disorders, there is no one test to detect ADHD, at least not with any certainty. Not only must a child demonstrate a certain number of symptoms, but the responsibility for picking up on those symptoms -- and for putting two and two together to make a diagnosis -- often falls to the child's parents or teachers.

In October 2008, Ryne Dougherty, a 16-year-old New Jersey teenager and junior linebacker for his high school football team, was in the middle of a game when he suffered a blow to his head -- just three and a half weeks after another on-field tackle left him with a concussion. This time, he was removed from the game and sent to the hospital, where they found bleeding in his brain. He died two days later.

Ask Carl Price about his childhood, and you can't help but feel moved by the struggles he faced as a young boy 25 years ago. With a father in jail and a mother struggling with addiction, Carl wasn't sure when his next meal would come, let alone his next medical checkup. So when Carl developed a tumor on the left side of his neck, it was left untreated for over a year.

When the Institute opened in 1937, it did so with an ambitious and novel mission: to be a place where physicians, educators, researchers, nurses, and therapists could provide the compassionate care, education, and support that children with developmental disabilities needed to unlock the potential they had inside -- and to improve upon it through a commitment to research and training.