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Other projects that
are underway in the Emotion and
Personality Development Lab include:
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- Health Disparity
Following Acquired Brain Injury
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This project is designed to
address the nature of health disparities in the post acute care and
rehabilitation of acquired brain injury (ABI) in a rural ethnic minority
population of youth living in the southeastern United States. An exemplar
community in Robeson County, North Carolina was chosen for its ethnic
diversity and rural status. The population is predominantly American
Indian and also has a large representation of African American, White, and
Latino members. The aims of the project include the development of a
working group to establish a methodology that effectively detects
incidence and prevalence of ABI in this rural community and that can
establish a point of comparison to existing epidemiological data on ABI.
The working group itself, which is comprised of professionals and members
of the community that serve patients with ABI, will specify the nature of
the research agenda on health disparity in ABI outcomes. The project will
focus on the relationship between community and cultural practices on the
attitudes, access, and use of rehabilitation services, and on the
measurement questions associated with the assessment of functional
outcomes in diversely affected patients with ABI. The study is being
conducted in collaboration with neuropsychologist Dr.
Peter Patrick at the Kluge Children's Rehabilitation Center and the
research consortium "Enhancing
Rehabilitation Research in the South (ERRIS)."
Fourth year undergraduate student Carrie
Gibson is a working on a Distinguished Major's Project using data
collected in connection with this study.
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- Preschool
Transition Study
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This pilot study was
initiated to assess the feasability of a larger scale, longitudinal study
of risk and resilience among Head Start children in Robeson County, North
Carolina. Information from the pilot study will contribute to
modifications in the design of a research protocol for the Robeson County
Individual Development Study (RCIDS) or "Our Kids" project that
is being proposed. Meanwhile, the Preschool Transition Study has provided
preliminary data on a variety of correlates of early childhood learning
and behavior patterns. In the
Preschool Transition Study, local area (Charlottesville, Virginia) parents
and children were invited for a single initial laboratory visit to assess
a variety of personality and neurodevelopmental factors related to emotion
regulation. A range of specific skills involving attention, language
development, visual/motor integration, visual-spatial ability, memory and
early childhood temperament styles were assessed. We are studying these
behaviors as they relate to school readiness and concurrent social
functioning. Follow up of the children once in elementary school is
planned for next year.
Fourth year undergraduate student Lisa
Saltzman is studying peer relationships during the transition to grade
school in conjunction with the follow-up sample from this study as part of
her Distinguished Major's Project.
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- Robeson County Individual Development
Study (R'CIDS)
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This investigation is
designed to address questions about psychological and neurodevelopmental
factors associated with elevated risk in Native American children for
later development of academic, social, and mental health problems. The
investigation represents a novel union of two purposes: (a) to test
specific scientific hypotheses regarding the role of early emotional
regulation as a foundation for the acquisition of later socio-emotional
and academic skills and (b) to do so in an under-studied and culturally
specific context. The study is proposed to facilitate identification of
early neurodevelopmental markers of risk and to map out trajectories of
development among a population of rural, poor, southeastern Native
American and other ethnic minority preschool children enrolled initially
in area Head Start centers. The focus of assessments will be on individual
child, familial, and community/cultural factors involved in the transition
from preschool to public school education. Of particular interest is the
central role hypothesized for individual differences in emotion regulation
for predicting teacher perceptions of school readiness, and for outcome
assessment of early academic achievement and behavioral problems. Five
specific aims will be pursued: (1) What is the role of early-appearing
individual differences in childhood temperament in the development of
emotional regulation and competence during early school years? (2) What is
the role of the executive functioning in early cognitive development -
specifically selective and sustained attention, behavioral control, and
organizational and planning abilities - in predicting academic achievement
and school-related socio-emotional behavior? (3) How do patterns of
emotion traits (such as temperament), and executive cognitive abilities
interact in the prediction of adaptive developmental transitions to
primary school? (4) What familial and cultural factors contribute to the
patterns of development observed for the predominantly Native American
children being considered for study? And (5) what are the psychometric
challenges that should be evaluated when conducting context-sensitive,
developmental assessments within a culturally diverse, rural, poverty
sample of young children and their families? These five aims will be
addressed using an accelerated longitudinal design with those families
with toddlers and preschoolers enrolled in twelve area Head Start sites.
It is the hope that this and other similar studies could then yield
information to inform remedial and preventive programs for Native American
and other rural minority children who are at particular risk in this
nation for academic underachievement and related mental health problems.
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- The Teen Pathways
Study: The Experience of Social Anxiety in Native American Adolescents
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Supported by a
National Research Service Training Award (NRSA) from the National
Institutes of Health, Amy West is
doing a doctoral thesis on social anxiety in adolescence. The primary goal
of this study is to complete an analysis of the experience of social
anxiety in a sample of rural Native American adolescents. Central to
this proposal is the idea that individual and contextual factors interact
to determine the risk for psychopathology in development. Individual
factors, such as behaviorally inhibited temperament -- an early appearing,
and stable tendency towards being shy, fearful, and easily upset in
unfamiliar environments -- have been found to relate to the development of
social anxiety in adolescence. The nature of this association,
however, and its contribution within an ecological context that also
includes familial, peer, and community factors, has not been
established. This project proposes multivariate analyses of the
individual personality and familial, social, and cultural/community
contexts in their contribution to the development of social anxiety in
young adolescents. A community-based sample of rural Native American
adolescents will allow for the particularly unique analysis of how culture
and ethnic identity may play a role in the risk for social anxiety.
Results from this study may allow for the specifications of multiple
models of risk in this population, including differentiation between types
of social anxiety and their specific characteristics, and nature of the
associations among relevant individual and contextual factors in the
prediction and experience of adolescent social anxiety
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- Women's Coping in
Prison Study - Natural History of Conduct Disorder
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As
part of her Master's Thesis, graduate student Mandi
Burnette is examining the relationship between Conduct Disorder (CD)
and Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) among the participants in the Women’s
Coping in Prison Study (PI: Dr.
Janet Warren). In this study, Mandi is exploring the following
questions: (1) The majority of research regarding ASPD concerns the
phenomenon in men, and the diagnostic criteria may be tailored to research
and experiences with a predominantly male populations meeting the
diagnosis. The validity of these criteria themselves and how well
they apply to antisocial women is questionable. For example,
currently the DSM-IV requires a diagnosis of childhood-onset CD in order
to have ASPD; however, it is unclear whether this particular criterion is
a valid one by which to diagnose antisocial women. This
pre-dissertation would examine the continuity of a CD diagnosis among
women who are incarcerated, and who would otherwise meet criteria for ASPD,
to see if antisocial women show comparable childhood continuity of CD
diagnoses as do men. (2)
Dependent on findings to the question above, if women are different from
men in the manifestation of CD evolving into ASPD, then is there a
relationship between CD and other personality disorders in women?
Adolescent women with a diagnosis of CD may in fact show a different
constellation of symptoms in later adulthood and meet criteria for other
personality disorders rather than ASPD. If this is the case, which
personality disorders are related to an earlier diagnoses of CD? |
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