Cheryl Wright

Cheryl Wright is an associate professor in the University of Utah’s Family and Consumer Studies. She received her Ph.D. in human development and family studies and early childhood education from Oregon State University. Her primary research focuses on creativity and the social emotional development in young children. She has been honored with the University of Utah’s Distinguished Teaching and Distinguished Service awards. Most recently, Dr. Wright has focused on research on school-aged young adults with autism. She and Dr. Scott Wright have launched the NeuroVersity program at the University of Utah, which is a collaborative effort to conduct research, develop curriculum and offer vocational training to young adults with autism using the 3D modeling software SketchUp. Her early research led her to surmise that workshops that incorporate familial participation with multiple generations will likely be most successful in affecting the social engagement and computer skill development of school-aged young adults. She and her colleagues have presented their program at national conferences and have developed a teacher-training toolkit so that educators may start a program in their own classrooms. The research team also plans to replicate this program with larger samples of children and incorporate additional types of technology and software, and to test the efficacy of and virtual community for both learning and support for youth and their family support system.