Inaugural recipient of The brAvery Foundation award announced (Links to an external site)

The Division of Child Psychiatry is proud to announce Simona Sarafinovska as the inaugural recipient of The brAvery Foundation award, designed for “an exceptional medical student or resident who has demonstrated his/her commitment to a career in child and adolescent psychiatry.”

Schizophrenia, other psychotic disorders focus of new clinic for teens, young adults (Links to an external site)

The first signs of mental illness involving psychosis — the experience of having hallucinations, delusions or intrusive, disturbing thoughts — often appear during the teen years. Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has opened a clinic to provide treatment free of charge to adolescents and young adults who may be in the early stages of psychosis.

SLCH Launching New Inpatient Unit

St. Louis Children’s Hospital is launching a new 14-bed inpatient unit, for which an active search is underway for leadership of the new unit.

New child maltreatment research center launched with $6.5 million NIH grant (Links to an external site)

Melissa Jonson-Reid, the Ralph and Muriel Pumphrey Professor of Social Work Research at the Brown School, and her team, including faculty from several disciplines across Washington University in St. Louis and Saint Louis University, have received a five-year, $6,496,050 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to create The Center for Innovation in Child Maltreatment Policy Research and Training (CICM).

Brain networks that help babies learn to walk ID’d (Links to an external site)

Scientists have identified brain networks involved in a baby’s learning to walk — a discovery that eventually may help predict whether infants are at risk for autism.

The findings build on previous research that has shown that babies who have delays in developing skills involved in coordination and movement are more likely to be diagnosed subsequently with autism spectrum disorder.

How to talk to kids about ’13 Reasons Why,’ suicide and terrorist attacks (Links to an external site)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Aisha Sultan and KMOX radio host Debbie Monterrey talk with Dr. Eric Spiegel, director of child psychiatry at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, about how to talk about the most sensitive and difficult topics with children and whether parents need to watch the controversial Netflix series about a teenager’s suicide.

Neuroimaging technique may help predict autism among high-risk infants (Links to an external site)

Functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging (fcMRI) may predict which high-risk, 6-month old infants will develop autism spectrum disorder by age 2 years, according to a study funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), two components of the National Institutes of Health.