KEYNOTE SPEAKER: |
Dr. Kevin Nugent |
Dr. J. Kevin Nugent is the Founder and Director of the Brazelton Institute at Children's Hospital in Boston and is on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School in the Department of Pediatrics. He is also Professor of Child and Family Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Dr. Nugent was educated in Ireland and received his doctorate in Developmental Psychology from Boston College. He has worked at the Children's Hospital in Boston since 1978, conducting research on newborn behavior and early parent-infant relations. Dr. Nugent is co-author with Dr. Brazelton, of the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale, third edition, published by Mac Keith Press, London and has been the director of training on the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale since 1978. He and his colleagues, Drs. Keefer, O'Brien, Johnson and Blanchard, developed the Newborn Behavioral Observations (NBO) system, formerly known as the CLNBAS. This observational set is intended for use by clinicians in pediatric and intervention settings, as a way of sensitizing parents to the competencies and individuality of their infants. It is comprised of 18 neurobehavioral observations and is based on an individualized, infant-focused, family-centered approach to working with infants and families in the early months of life. Dr. Nugent's areas of research include the effects of a range of prenatal teratogens on neonatal and developmental outcome, the impact of melatonin on newborn behavior, the transition to parenthood and the role of fathers. He is involved in a study of the origins of temperament, with Jerome Kagan and Nancy Snidman. Dr. Nugent continues to conduct research in a variety of cultural settings. He is co-investigator with Professor Sheila Greene at Trinity College, Dublin, in a 20-year longitudinal study of child development in Ireland. Dr. Nugent is currently engaged in an examination of the effects of the NBO as a form of preventative intervention in both hospital and Early Intervention settings. Dr. Nugent is a senior editor of the two-volume series, "The Cultural Context of Infancy" and co-editor with Joao Gomes-Pedro, Berry Brazelton and Jerry Young, of "The Baby in the 21st Century" (2002). He is now editing a book on the NBAS with Dr. Brazelton and Bonnie Petrauskas, while he and his colleagues are working on a handbook for the NBO. Dr. Nugent is the editor of Ab Initio ( www.abinitiointernational.com ), the international newsletter of the Brazelton Institute. |
Dr. Judith Carta |
Dr. Judith Carta is the Director of Early Childhood Research at the Juniper Gardens Children's Project, a community-based research center of the University of Kansas. Juniper Gardens Children's Project is a national center focusing on children in poverty. Researchers at the center form partnerships with schools, Headstart agencies, child care centers and other social service agencies to develop and test practices for promoting children's development and learning. |
Dr. Leslie Rescorla |
Dr.Leslie Rescorla received her B.A. degree from Radcliffe College, an M.Sc. degree from the London School of Economics, and her Ph.D. from Yale. She did a clinical internship at the Yale Child Study Center and then continued her clinical training at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Center and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. She has been on the faculty at Bryn Mawr College since 1985. A Professor of Psychology, she is also the Director of the Child Study Institute of Bryn Mawr College, a clinic serving children and families. Additionally, she is the administrative head of the Phebe Anna Thorne School, an early childhood program serving both typically developing children and children with language delays. Dr. Rescorla is a licensed clinical psychologist and a certified school psychologist. In addition to her teaching, research, and administrative activities, she maintains a clinical practice at the Child Study Institute, where she works with children and their families and consults with schools. |
Dr. Steven Lopez |
Dr. Steven R. López is a professor of psychology, psychiatry, and Chicano Studies at UCLA. His main area of research addresses how sociocultural factors relate to the psychopathology, assessment, and intervention of Latinos and other ethnic minority groups. He began with the study of culture and assessment and has extended that work to culture and intervention. Based on this work, he has developed a heuristic model of cultural competence for clinical practice. With support from the National Institute of Mental Health, Professor López has been studying the relationship of family factors and the course of schizophrenia, particularly among Mexican American families. His current line of study is to identify what behaviors underlie Mexican American family warmth in an effort to identify what families do to prevent relapse. |
Dr. Christina Foreman |
Dr. Christina Foreman is an Assistant Professor of Communications Disorders at University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a Clinical Supervisor at the UMass Amherst Center for Speech, Language and Hearing. She received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from University of California, L.A., and her M.S. in Communication Disorders and Sciences at California State University, Northridge. |
