COVID-19 and preschoolers with DD: Through two seperate projects (TOTS and Kid Brain Network), I am a co-author on a series of papers investigating how COVID-19 has affected children with developmental disabilies. We have conducted qualitative interviews on how COVID-19 has affected early special education, community, and medical service provision for preschoolers from provider (findings here) and parent perspectives. I also am a primary author on a project investigating how individual child factors predict various aspects of distance learning engagement in school age children with a history of developmental delay. You can find our initial findings, presented at NASP 2021.
Parent and Preschool Child Self-Regulation: Currently, I am a co-author on a series of research projects investigating how parent emotion-regulation, stress, and parenting practices contribute to the development of children’s self-regulation abilities during preschool. Past research has been at the APA 2020 virtual convention on intergenerational education gaps, and how parenting practices moderate the relationship between child inhibitory control and school readiness.
We also presented at NASP 2021, on how low access to parental emotion regulation strategies corresponds with children’s emotion-regulation development, with parent stress as a potential pathway.
Most recently, we've looked at how parenting practices, ER, and parents' emotional wellebeing contributes to children's social-emotional development at APA 2022. We are currently working on a manuscript to publish these findings.
Dynamic Predictors of Parent Child Emotion-Regulation: I am collaborating with collegues to conduct a series of studies investigating the transactional relationship between parent and child emotion regulation using EMA methodology.
TOTS (Tiered Online Trainings and Supports): Iterative development of an online training program for caregivers of young children with developmental delay. The program will provide a tiered model of supports, or matched to caregiver need. In 2019, I helped to lead focus groups and engaged in qualitative thematic analysis to investigate stakeholder input from parents, and co-authored a paper on those findings, recently accepted with IDD. I have also helped to provide content, creating examples to illustrate intervention concepts.
Systematic Review of Web and Smartphone-Based Parent-Mediated Interventions: I am the lead author on a systematic review of technology based parent trainings for parents of children with ASD. We presented this research in a poster session at INSAR 2019 and were published in Review JADD.
Kid Brain Network: We aquired resting state fMRI scans of school-age (7-14-years-old) children with previous or current diagnoses of ASD or DD. I helped children acclimate to the scanner during mock sessions, and provided behavioral support and safety monitoring during MRI scans. We presented research on how sensory over-responsivity and anxiety contributed to participation and attrition in these scans at INSAR 2020.
Using this sample, we also presented a poster at INSAR 2022, where we found differential influences of "hot" and "cool" self-regulation aspects on anxiety and sensory over-responsivity symptoms. We hope to incorporate our neuropsychological measures and fMRI data into our next research questions.
CogBites: I’ve contributed a number of articles to the blog CogBites, which aims to provide accessible knowledge about the mind in easy to read, bite size posts. You can read my posts here.