Child Development

Honors Faculty Areas of Research Interest

Professor Dirghangi

  • Assessing the impact of Bringing Baby Home parent workshop on couples’ relationship after child birth and parent child relationship.
  • Implementing coping skill related interventions (Women’s Circles) enabling emerging adults transition to college life successfully
  • Implementing coping skill related interventions (Girl’s Circles) enabling adolescent girls make better mental and physical health choices.
  • Adolescent well-being in relation to peer relationships
  • Adolescent well-being in the school setting, with a focus on bullying and victimization.
  • Adolescent experiences of cyberbullying and intervention efforts
  • Impact of Peers on healthy and unhealthy eating habits/body image development 
  • Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences on Adolescents’ and Emerging Adults’ Mental Health Outcomes such as Identity and Interpersonal Styles Development

Professor Hart

  • The impact of the Camp Fire on community members including college students.
  • Suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention, particularly in the child, adolescent, and young adult populations.
  • The intersection of adverse childhood experiences (ACE’s) with a variety of health indicators in emerging adults.
  • Incorporating Teacher-Child Interaction Training (TCIT) into a variety of community agency services and Child Development student internship experiences.
  • The educational success of preschool, elementary, and secondary students experiencing emotional and behavioral challenges.
  • Promoting nurturing, sensitive and responsive caregiving of parents and caregivers for young children.
  • Emotion regulation, disordered eating attitudes, and social-emotional health of pre-adolescents and adolescents.
  • Mood disorders, particularly early-onset (pediatric) bipolar disorder.
  • Illuminating protective factors inherent in high-risk individuals to promote successful life experiences.
  • Latent variable modeling and longitudinal analyses; using person-centered statistical models to evaluate life processes.

Professor Nenadal

  • K-12 curriculum development, implementation, and evaluation
  • Observing,  evaluating, and providing feedback on teaching techniques in K-12 classrooms
  • Talking with and teaching children about social issues
  • Individuals’ attitudes and beliefs about social groups
  • Children’s and adults’ beliefs about wealth and poverty
  • Effects of poverty on children’s development

Professor Shepherd

  • Parent-child attachment relationships: school age, adolescence, and young adults
  • Adolescent and young adult sources of social support, emotional intelligence, and wellbeing
  • Parenting behaviors and developmental parenting.
  • Children's subjective well-being, self-esteem, self-concept, and resiliency
  • Father involvement, attachment, and generative fathering
  • Childhood trauma and attachment

Professor Walton

  • The development of perfectionism
  • Gender differences in perfectionism
  • Parenting variables that predict perfectionism
  • Personality variables that predict perfectionism
  • Cross cultural influences on perfectionism and academic achievement
  • Emotional development in young children

shrija

shelley

Lindsey Nenadal

diana

gail