REU Research Projects 2024
1. Raven Bacchas: See Research Poster Here
Currently, there are many barriers that negatively impact caregivers from participating in research, such as limited amount of culturally diverse staff on the research team, mistrust with research studies, and lack of understanding about what child development research is. For my research topic, I am exploring how families can have more inclusive and meaningful experiences when participating in child development research. Moreover, I want to understand how researchers can be more aware of what different caregivers hope to receive from participating in research, such as child development knowledge, information about needed resources, and more. I will be analyzing survey responses to examine this, sampling caregivers from WEIRD—White, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic—populations and non-WEIRD backgrounds. From these responses, I expect there will be significant differences between what these two groups value when choosing to participate in research. To diversify this field, child development researchers should understand caregivers’ motivations for participating in research and should further modify how to recruit, inform, and incentivize their participants.
2. Martha Hopkins
Does the problematic usage of social media relate to impulsivity/emotional dysregulation? This question is important because as social media usage increases amongst today’s generation, it is crucial that we understand its effects. We know from prior research that certain social factors can impact cognitive development and overall mental health. As we evolve, and new ways of social interactions emerge, it is important to further our knowledge on how they impact us.
As we measure emotional regulation, we look at the awareness, the intensity, and the control of emotions such as happiness, anger, frustration, and sadness. Emotional dysregulation means an individual has a difficult time controlling said emotions. We are curious to find the relation between the amount of time individuals spend on social media, and their awareness of their own emotional regulation. We predict to see some correlation between individuals’ emotional dysregulation and their time spent on social media.
As a parent, this research is important because I want to be aware of what potential risks my children are exposed to and make preventions accordingly. And I hope to share this knowledge to help other parents do the same.
3. Emily Stern: See Research Poster Here
The aim of my project is to explore the impact of an active playful learning program for parents and children on proactive parenting practices and positive reinforcement. Prior research has established the importance of high-quality parenting on optimal child development. Through semi-structured play sessions, the “Play with Me” (Juega Conmigo) 12-week program helps parents acquire the skills necessary to provide high-quality care. I will assess the program’s impact through the Multidimensional Assessment of Parenting Scale (MAPS) and qualitative data from parents. We will identify changes in parenting practices from surveys collected in the final week of the program. Our areas of interest include communication, setting expectations, and providing adequate praise.
Short-term programming can have a positive impact on the wellbeing of children, but the key to raising a well-adjusted child is consistency. With this in mind, my goal is to examine the ways service providers can support parents in providing sensitive, child-centered care at home. My project connects the skills parents report implementing to changes in parenting overall. This shows how lessons have been applied day to day, and if they’ve led to positive changes in parenting behavior after time. Evaluating programming in this way tells providers where to focus their efforts, ensuring effective programming capable of changing the lives of children and families for the better.
4. Emily Espinoza: See Research Poster Here
The LENA system is a common method used by researchers and clinicians who are interested in exploring children’s home language environment. This system includes a recorder and software that breaks down audio into 3 different variables: the number of words spoken by an adult, the number of conversational turns, and the number of vocalizations produced by a child. Researchers use different methods when analyzing LENA recordings, such as choosing high-interactive segments (high number of words spoken by an adult and high conversational turn count) and randomly selected segments. My first research question is, are highly interactive language samples and/or randomly selected samples more representative of children’s language abilities? Further, we will identify whether the parent and child’s highest quality interactions (e.g., high interactive samples) or typical interactions throughout the day are most important for children’s language development. Ultimately, findings from this study could help researchers understand effective ways to utilize home language recordings and determine what kind of parent language input matters most to children’s language growth.
5. Elizabeth Martinez: See Research Poster Here
Parentese, commonly known as infant directed speech or baby talk, is characterized as a use of higher pitch, exaggerated vowels, and slower speech rate. Research has shown that the use of parentese helps with children’s early language development. However, most research studies have been done on monolingual English-speaking children, and there’s a lack of research on English-Spanish bilingual children. Culture plays a role in the way language is used among families. For example, Mexican American families value politeness and the importance of turn-taking rather than initiating conversation. Also, Spanish-speaking caregivers prefer to use less parentese when talking to their children and believe that mature forms of language benefit their child’s language development more. With this, my research will investigate what percentage of parentese in each language Spanish-English bilingual caregivers use when talking to their child. And how does bilingual parentese influence children’s language development? This research will help us unpack the variability we see in bilingual families’ language use and will help us understand if parentese should be recommended as an important language development strategy for bilingual children.
6. Kaitlin Frazier
The majority of developmental science is conducted among WEIRD (White, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) samples which leads to a lack of representation in science and the policy decisions that follow. My research question is looking to find if the use of scientific language over plain language presents a barrier to more diverse participation in child development research. I am expecting to find that the overcomplicated language used in research presents a barrier to those who do not have a strong English language background and this results in less diverse participation in developmental research. I also expect that participants will vary in their preferences for the language(s) used in research studies, with non-native English speakers preferring studies conducted in their home language. I believe this research is important because it will aid future researchers in providing resources that promote more inclusivity in developmental science.
7. MeSha McClanahan: See Research Poster Here
My research projects examines if minority groups use behavioral control—ways that parents try to sway children to do what they want, i.e. if you do not wash the dishes, Santa will not bring you the toy you want for Christmas—in the same way as non-minority groups. This project extends the work of Dr. Candice Mills’ Santa Project, in which the majority of the participants identified as White. My research adds a diverse perspective, which more accurately represents the demographics of America. I’m also examining how participants viewed the ethnicity of Santa Claus when they were children. I grew up in a household where all of our important figures matched my family’s race—Santa, Jesus and even our angel toppers were all Black. I want to see if this has an impact on a person’s ethnic pride. I believe it is important to have children grow up in an environment that promotes ethnic pride, which could lead to higher self-esteem, lower suicide rates, and lower self-hatred.
8. Alexia Vargas: See Research Poster Here
If a parent has a high belief in their self-efficacy, that means they are confident in their ability to handle and care for their children’s behavior. My research is looking into how the Play with Me program influences parents’ self-efficacy. Parental self-efficacy is taught in the Play with Me program, an outreach program for young children ages 0-3 and their parents, through weekly lessons and facilitator modelling. This research investigates the impact of the Play with Me program on self-efficacy, while controlling for variations in the educational backgrounds of the parents. No research has looked into these connections. This research is important because parents who are more confident in their parenting can create stronger connections with their child and can handle their children’s behaviors more effectively.
9: Sabian Bowen: See Research Poster Here