Policy on Scientific Integrity, Transparency, and Openness
International Day: Thursday March 21, 2019
Browse the Biennial Meeting Invited Program:
Schedule At-A-Glance
Interdisciplinary Day: Friday March 22, 2019
Relevant Day: Saturday March 23, 2019
9:30 am - 11:00 am CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Title: Lexical Networks in Typical and Atypical Development
Location: Baltimore Convention Center, Room 307
Natalia Arias-Trejo obtained a DPhil in Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom after receiving a Master's in Applied Linguistics at the University of Sussex and a BA in Hispanic Language and Literature at the National Mexican University. She is director of the Psycholinguistics Lab at the Faculty of Psychology at the National Mexican University. Her research focuses on language acquisition in typically developing children, semantic and morphological processing in children with Down syndrome, as well as numerical processing in this population. Recently she started to look at lexical networks in people diagnosed with dementia. Dr Arias-Trejo loves reading, going to the cinema and playing with her daughter.
Abstract: The mental lexicon is organised by a structure of cues that links words together because their referents share semantics aspects, phonological traits, associative relations, among other features. How early is the mental lexicon organised? Under which parameters can we study this organisation? Moreover, do children with a neurodevelopmental syndrome form a structured mental lexicon? A series of empirical studies sheds light onto these questions. We demonstrate that not only under neurodevelopmental conditions, but also those with a genetic syndrome exhibit an effect of a direct relationship between two words. Moreover, the links between words are evidenced in direct relationships as well as through an activated mediated item in typical development. Finally, we raised the issue of whether these semantic networks are preserved with aging.
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Title: "It's more complicated than that": Child Development Across the Life-course in High Adversity Settings
Mark Tomlinson is the co-Director of the Institute of Child and Adolescent Health Research at Sellenbosch University. His scholarly work has involved a diverse range of topics that have in common an interest in factors that contribute to compromised maternal health, to understanding infant and child development in contexts of high adversity, to understand the impact of maternal depression on infant and child health and development, and how to develop community based home visiting intervention programmes. He was elected as a member of the Academy of Science in South Africa in 2017. He has published over 200 papers in peer-reviewed journals, edited two books and published numerous chapters. He is the lead editor of Child and Adolescent Development: An Expanded Focus for Public Health in Africa from University of Cape Town Press. He is on the Editorial Board of PLoS Medicine; is an Associate Editor of Infant Mental Health Journal, and is also on the Editorial Board of Psychology, Health and Medicine.
Abstract: Unlocking human potential depends on sensitive parental care that is responsive to the needs of children. In contexts of high adversity, the capacity of parents to provide the kind of care that promotes positive child developmental outcomes can be severely compromised. Even though early interventions can have direct or indirect long-term consequences, high levels of developmental risk can overwhelm the effects of normally protective influences, which provide potential explanations for early intervention gains fading in high-risk populations. In this presentation I will discuss findings from a number of longitudinal studies (one across 18 years), conducted in South Africa and Lesotho in order to highlight the complexities of delivering interventions in contexts of adversity, and to draw attention to gaps in our knowledge about mechanism, dose, timing and duration of interventions to ensure that children and adolescents in low and middle income countries are able to meet their developmental potential.
11:15 am - 12:15 pm TAD TALKS ON INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH (CONSECUTIVE)
Location: Baltimore Hilton, Level 2, Holiday Ballroom
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Title: Mother and Infant Brains Interact
Gianluca Esposito is a Developmental Neuroscientist qualified to advance the ongoing investigations on child psychopathology contributing strengths in human electrophysiology and neuroimaging, complex data modeling, and comparative physiological assessment with the aim of studying Early Social Interaction. He focuses on comparative neuro-behavioral analysis of mother-infant interaction across mammalian species, and its implication to psychopathology. His work has produced publications, collaborations and has been recognized several times by a number of agencies from Europe, Singapore, Japan, USA and UAE. His studies have been published in different fields (Psychology, Biology, Neuroscience, Education), using multiple technologies (e.g. fNIRS; EEG, fMRI, ECG, Animal models; genetic assessments; pharmacological manipulations). Twitter: @gesposito79
Abstract: Attachment between mother and infant is the earliest and most critical social relationship in mammalians. Specific automatic brain patterns regulate infants seeking proximity to mother and prompt protest on separation from mother. These mechanisms promote attachment through vocal communication and bodily movement. Reciprocally, enhanced brain activity in mothers is associated with mothers' movement and speech to infants and, more generally, with their propensity to caregive. Infant and maternal brains "respond" to one another, and they follow a dynamic synchronous "dance". During this TAD, I will illustrate these mother-infant dynamics with new findings from animal and human studies that employ a variety of techniques from genetic engineering to neuroimaging hyper-scanning.
Title: Adolescents or Immigrants? The Coaction of Developmental and Acculturative Processes
Peter F. Titzmann is Professor for Developmental Psychology at the Leibniz University Hanover, Germany. During his academic career, he was visiting scholar at the University of York, UK, and received his PhD at the Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, Germany. At the University of Zurich, Switzerland, he was Assistant Professor for Life Course and Competence Development in Childhood and Adolescence at the Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development, before he became Professor for Psychology at the University of Education Weingarten, Germany. His general research interest relates to the interplay between normative development and migration-related adaptation among children and adolescents with immigrant background. He investigated this interplay in various developmental outcomes, such as experiences of stress, delinquent behaviour, victimization, self-efficacy, friendships, autonomy development, and changes in family hierarchy and family interaction. He is an active member of various scientific associations and Associate Editor of the International Journal of Intercultural Relations.
Abstract: The presentation will highlight the coaction of developmental and acculturative processes in explaining behavioral outcomes among children and adolescents with immigrant background. In the first part, the presentation will demonstrate different methodological approaches and empirical results of how the coaction of development and acculturation have been studied in past research on immigrant youth. These approaches mainly considered developmental and acculturation-related changes, predictors, and stages. However, as the dynamics of change are often only implicitly implemented in acculturation research, the second part will present a more dynamic understanding of acculturation. This part will present concepts of acculturation timing that pertain to the biological, social and psychological changes in pubertal development. We specifically present the concepts of acculturative timing, tempo, pace, and synchronicity as a means to systematically study acculturative changes over time. These concepts may help in making acculturation research more dynamic and less static.
Title: Being There: Expanding Paradigms for Child Development Research
Carol M. Worthman is Samuel Candler Dobbs Chair in the Department of Anthropology at Emory University, a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. With training in anthropology, human development, and neuroscience at Harvard and MIT, she forged an integrated ecobiocultural model of human development that guides global transdisciplinary research investigating the bases of differential well-being. Her lab pioneered the use of biomarkers in population research and advances inclusive capacity-building in all locales where it works, including projects in thirteen countries, as well as in rural, urban, and semi-urban U.S. As a founding collaborator in the population-based Great Smoky Mountains Study, she implemented mixed-methods approaches to understanding disparities in developmental outcomes. Global policy impact of her work extends from breastfeeding and reproductive health, to reintegration of ex-child soldiers, and promoting mental health of adolescents.
Abstract: SRCD's strategic goal to integrate manifold forms of diversity throughout the field draws from recognition that developmental science currently represents a very narrow slice of humanity. Yet realizing the full potential of this commitment requires transformations not only in where research is done and who does it, but also in what questions are asked, in how we think and work. Anthropology's core method of ethnographic participant observation requires "being there" with the people and places we study and as such, provides a powerful basis for advancing the field through engagement, insight, and inclusive inquiry. This talk discusses three examples from my own work to illustrate the power of being there for yielding unexpected breakthroughs on hot topics in human development—breastfeeding and child survival, the first 1000 days, and child soldiers.
12:30 pm - 2:00 pm CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Title: Enhancing the Lives of Global Youth: Plasticity, Non-Ergodicity, Specificity, and the Promotion of Social Justice
Richard M. Lerner is the Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science and the Director of the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University. He went from kindergarten through Ph.D. within the New York City public schools, completing his doctorate at the City University of New York in 1971 in developmental psychology. Lerner has more than 700 scholarly publications, including more than 80 authored or edited books. He was the founding editor of the Journal of Research on Adolescence and of Applied Developmental Science, which he continues to edit. Lerner is known for his theory of relations between life-span human development and social change, and for his research about the relations between adolescents and their peers, families, schools, and communities. His work integrates the study of public policies and community-based programs with the promotion of positive youth development and youth contributions to civil society.
Abstract: Within contemporary developmental science, description, explanation, and optimization goals are increasingly pursued within models framed by relational developmental systems (RDS) metatheory, which emphasizes that relative plasticity – systematic changes in mutually influential relations between a specific individual and his/her specific context – characterizes life-span development. The non-ergodicity and idiography of these dynamic, individual-context relations mean that specificity should be the starting point of efforts to optimize each human life or to promote equity, opportunity, and social justice among diverse youth. To illustrate how RDS-based models can capitalize on the plasticity, non-ergodicity, and specificity to enhance youth thriving, I discuss findings from the Compassion International Study of Positive Youth Development, a multi-nation longitudinal investigation of thriving among majority-world youth. I note directions for future RDS-based research aimed at promoting health, thriving, and social justice among diverse youth, and I emphasize the timeliness and potential impacts of a focus on global youth.
Title: Impacts of the climate crisis on children and youth: Roles for developmental science
Ann Sanson is a developmental psychologist whose research has principally focused on understanding the role of child, family and community characteristics in social and emotional development from infancy to adulthood. She is a principal investigator on two major Australian longitudinal studies – the 3-generation Australian Temperament Project and the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. Her engagement with psychology's contributions to social issues includes roles with the Australian Psychological Society, the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, and the international Committee for the Psychological Study of Peace. Her current work focuses on the impact of the climate crisis on current and future generations of children. She is an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne, and a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society and the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development. She has over 200 publications.
Abstract: The increase in extreme weather events across the world is a harbinger of much worse climate impacts in the near future. As a disruptor of the basic necessities for health and well-being, global warming poses an existential threat to current and future generations of children and youth. Urgent action is needed to avoid catastrophic impacts.
This talk considers the many ways in which we, as developmental science researchers, practitioners and advocates, can use our knowledge, skills and resources to help protect future generations. We can help them develop a sense of agency and resilience to cope with the climate threat, engage effectively in climate mitigation and adaptation, and develop skills and attributes to live in a climate-changed and low-carbon world. And as informed advocates for the younger generation, we can work for urgent transformational change at national and global levels.
2:15 pm - 3:45 pm CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Title: What Matters for Children's Development in Low-income Settings? Learning from the Young Lives Study
Jo Boyden is a social anthropologist and Professor of International Development at the University of Oxford, where she directs Young Lives, a longitudinal study of childhood poverty in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam. Her research has centred on children's education and work and the association with aspirations and social mobility, as well as young people's experiences of and responses to poverty, armed conflict and forced migration, specifically the developmental and wellbeing outcomes of risk exposure and the factors that contribute to vulnerability and resilience. She has many years of experience working with diverse stakeholders (governments, IGOs, INGOs, CSOs, research institutes, communities and young people) across a wide range of countries in the use of research evidence in designing appropriate policies and programmes for children and young people living in situations of adversity.
Abstract: This presentation shares key findings from 17 years of mixed-methods, cohort-sequential, longitudinal research with 12,000 children and their families in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam. It highlights significant achievements in child nutrition and education access, some surprising evidence around gender and major challenges in relation to socio-economic inequality and service quality, also noting the emergence of 'new' developmental risks for children due to rising overweight and obesity. The presentation makes the case that, contrary to the assumptions of much research and many interventions, adolescence is a time of extraordinary responsibility in low-income settings, with young people struggling to meet competing gendered expectations with regard to education, productive and reproductive work, marriage and parenthood. It calls for far greater policy attention to the second decade of life, also arguing for integrated approaches that are effectively grounded in local cultural and political-economic realities and take full account of young people's perspectives.
Title: Continuous Time Dynamic Modeling
Manuel C. Völkle is professor for psychological research methods at the Humboldt University Berlin and an adjunct researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany. His research revolves around the development and application of new methods for the study of developmental dynamics in affective and cognitive functioning. Much of his recent work is concerned with continuous time modeling and the analysis of the intricate relationship of between- and within-person differences in psychological constructs as they evolve over time.
Abstract: The goal of this presentation is to introduce participants to continuous time dynamic modeling. Continuous time dynamic models are models for the analysis of change that make optimal use of the time structure to infer the development and dynamic relationships among constructs of interest. After distinguishing between static and dynamic models for the analysis of change and a short discussion of their respective advantages and disadvantages, I will introduce the basics of continuous time dynamic modeling in a stepwise fashion. I will highlight the possibility to work with intensive longitudinal data, including the analysis of N = 1 time-series (e.g., dynamic factor models), as well as panel data (T small, N large). Apart from a general introduction, special emphasis will be put on the interpretation and practical implementation of these models. I will end with an overview of recent developments, current limitations, and future research directions.
Title: Measuring Early Learning Quality & Outcomes: A Journey from Global Priorities to Local Action, and Back Again
Abbie Raikes PhD., MPH, is an associate professor at the College of Public Health, University of Nebraska Medical Center. Dr. Raikes' recent work has focused on improving early childhood programs and policies in low- and middle-income countries. Her research background also includes a strong focus on young children's social/emotional development and leadership of the Measuring Early Learning and Quality Outcomes project. Previously, Abbie contributed to early childhood policy development in several countries as a program specialist for the United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO) in Paris, where she also participated in UNESCO's process to develop indicators for the Sustainable Development Goals. Abbie was a senior program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and has advised several organizations on early childhood development and education. Abbie has served on several boards, including the Nebraska Early Childhood Collaborative, Creighton Preparatory School, and the Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition.
Abstract: The Measuring Early Learning Quality & Outcomes Project (MELQO) was initiated by UNESCO, UNICEF, World Bank, and Brookings Institution in 2014 to support early childhood measurement in low- and middle-income countries. Drawing on expertise from many experts, the MELQO Consortium developed a set of tools to measure quality of pre-primary education and child development at the start of formal schooling. Reporting on the MELQO journey and results from several countries, this session will cover several themes, including the role of global organizations in setting priorities for global early childhood development; empirical results on psychometric properties of the scales and associations between quality and child development; and new initiatives to address the need for cross-country learning, capacity-building and culturally-relevant measurement in child development.
Title: Infant Regulatory Problems and Developmental Trajectories into Adulthood
Dieter F. Wolke is Professor of Developmental Psychology and Individual Differences at the University of Warwick. Dieter studied at the University of Kiel, Germany and obtained his Ph.D. from the University of London. He has worked at different colleges of the University of London, the Universities of Munich, Hertfordshire, Bristol and the research funding sector (Zurich) before joining the University of Warwick, UK in 2006. His research is interdisciplinary, longitudinal and in the field of Developmental Psychopathology. His major research topics are: 1. early regulatory problems (crying, sleeping and feeding) in infancy and their long term consequences; 2. how preterm birth affects brain development and psychological development and quality of life; and 3. Peer or sibling victimization (bullying): precursors, consequences and interventions. He is joint manager of the Horizon 2020 RECAP-Preterm project involving 12 countries trying to improve the lives of preterm children. He received an honorary doctorate (Dr rer nat h.c.) from the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, in 2014 for his contribution to Psychological Science.
Abstract: All babies cry and they have to learn to console themselves, to learn to sleep through the night and overcome neophobia to accept solid food in infancy. This is often described as bio-behavioural adaptation. However, if the attempts at adaptation fail and continue beyond a normative period (e.g. excessive crying continues beyond the 3 months colic period), this indicates early regulatory problems, i.e. the inability to stop an ongoing behavior such as crying or waking at night. Around 10% of infants experience more than one regulatory problem at the same time, i.e. multiple regulatory problems (MRP). Although highly challenging for parents, MRP often occur despite sensitive parenting. New evidence will be presented that MRP increases the risk of dysregulation across childhood and has cascading effects on mental health in childhood, adolescence and even adulthood. These findings have implications for research on childhood self-regulation and clinical implications for treatment.
© 2018 Society for Research in Child Development