Research Interests

Parenting Research Associated with Parent-Child Interaction Training

The parent-child interaction project is a service delivery program which is part of The Department of Psychology Clinics, CSUN Community Services Center housed in Monterey Hall.  Each treatment room has video recording capabilities and is equipped with one way mirrors and observation rooms.  Parent-child or sibling behaviors can be tabulated live from behind one-way mirrors or can be tabulated from video-tape.  In addition, observation rooms have the capacity for computer hook-ups to make data collection quite easy.

The parent training program has spawned and supports four on-going research projects.  Most of the parents and siblings of the developmentally disabled children who come to the clinic to receive the parent training service also serve as subjects in the following on-going research projects:

 Linking strength of parental attachment and self regulation in children.

Teachers will provide measure of self-regulation in children ages four to ten.  Strength of attachment will assessed from multiple perspectives, including parent reports and observer ratings.  The purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis that nurturant-responsive parenting practices would be positively related, and harsh-non-responsive and/or inconsistently responsive parenting practices would be inversely related, to children's self regulation behavior.

Conditions of sibling support for a developmentally disabled child.

The purpose of the study is to examine the nature and the extent of siblings' supportive roles and the conditions under which sibling provide support to a developmentally disabled sibling about familial and non-familial issues.  One important variable will be the degree of parental attachment between the sibling providing support/non-support and the mother.