Dr. Joshua Brown to serve on Steering Committee of the University-Based Child and Family Policy Consortium

Dr. Joshua Brown has been elected to serve as one of five Senior Representatives on the Steering Committee of the University-Based Child and Family Policy (CFP) Consortium.

The Consortium includes over 35 member institutions, and focuses on advancing scientific collaboration on child and family policy issues, cross-disciplinary undergraduate and graduate training to support the next generation of child and family policy researchers, and effective translation of research-to-policy and research-to-practice. The Consortium holds weekly calls and regular web-available presentations by researchers and policy scholars open to all faculty and graduate students in the Applied Developmental Psychology program.

Anastasi Lecture Paints Bleak Picture of Class Disparity

Contact: Tom Stoelker (212) 636-7556 tstoelker@fordham.edu

Henry Braun, Ph.D., delivered the 2014 Anastasi Lecture. Photo by Tom Stoelker

Growing economic disparity in America is shattering the American Dream, and there’s plenty of data to back the up the assertion. This was the none-too-subtle message that Henry Braun, Ph.D., delivered at the seventh Anastasi Lecture at Fordham Lincoln Center on Oct. 21.

“There really is this hollowing out of the middle class,” said Braun. “What used to be considered working class is now looking very poor. Today, most working people couldn't find $400 in case of an emergency.”

Braun, the Boisi Professor of Education and Public Policy at Boston College, laid out data illustrating that gross differences in opportunity have “implications for inter-generational mobility, the national economy, civil society, and the democratic polity.”

“More and more, the circumstances of birth cast a long shadow on a child’s life trajectory,” he said, adding that situation could almost be described as “deterministic” with little chance of a child breaking free from his or her economic background.

“The accelerated accumulation of advantage or disadvantage leads to profound differences in opportunities between those born at the top of the ladder and those born at the bottom. When children enter kindergarten, it's far from a level playing field.”

He said that poor parents' lack of social capital prevents them from working the system, and puts them at a disadvantage before the child even begins school. Little time can be devoted to literacy activities, affecting even the cumulative number of words the child hears, learns, and repeats. A child on welfare has a recorded vocabulary size of 525 words, whereas a child in professional household has a vocabulary size of 1,116 words. Once the poor child arrives at school, wealthy parents will continue to outspend poorer parents to further their child’s enrichment.

“It’s not just the number of words that matter, but it’s also the quality of the interaction,” said Braun.

Braun detailed the disparate trajectories through data, graphs, and charts. He compared rich and poor students in high school, extra school activities, and on through college. He factored in race and racism, zoning and housing policies, as well as residential and school segregation.

“School segregation is increasing, it’s actually a hyper segregation,” he said.

In the end, he said “like marries like,” with high school graduates marrying high school graduates, college graduates marrying college graduates, thus increasing the rich/poor disparity.

He said that as the nation grows further apart through divergence of wealth—a process he called “self-reinforcing”—only a serious change in the social contract could help alleviate the problem. But partisan bickering at most every level of government won’t allow for it. He said that focusing on the income inequities only exacerbates divisions. Instead, he suggested that advocates for change focus on an “opportunity for all” message, which would be palatable to both conservatives and liberals, and resonate with America’s perception of itself.

Braun said it’s vital for researchers to be able to frame the crisis in narratives that are palatable to the general public and appeal across party lines.

“Finding ways to communicate to the public is something we on the research side don’t do very well, but we must find a way to do it in ways that are not accusatory,” he said.

“Most Americans do believe that this country should be a land of opportunity. This is what brought millions to this country and we're sadly failing future generations.”

Established in 2008 as part of the activities of the Anastasi Professorship for Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology, the Anastasi Lectures honor the late Anne Anastasi, Ph.D., former chair of Fordham Psychology Department. The lectures are delivered by leading experts in psychology, educational measurement, industrial and organizational psychology and quantitative methods.

Founded in 1841, Fordham is the Jesuit University of New York, offering exceptional education distinguished by the Jesuit tradition to more than 15,100 students in its four undergraduate colleges and its six graduate and professional schools. It has residential campuses in the Bronx and Manhattan, a campus in West Harrison, N.Y., the Louis Calder Center Biological Field Station in Armonk, N.Y., and the London Centre in the United Kingdom.


Original blog post: http://www.fordham.edu/Campus_Resources/eNewsroom/topstories_3320.asp

2014 Anastasi Lecture set for October 21st

 It’s Complicated: The Ongoing Saga of Opportunity in America

Speaker: Henry Braun, Boisi Professor of Education and Public Policy, Boston College
When: Tuesday, October 21, 2014 at 5:30 pm
Where: 12th Floor Lounge, Lowenstein Center at 113W. 60th Street, Lincoln Center Campus

The lecture is open to the public. A reception will follow.

Abstract

America has always seen itself as a Land of Opportunity. Over the last four decades, a torrent of data on growing inequality, have led many to doubt that view of our nation. Inequality of opportunity may be both the most fundamental and the most amenable to public and private action. Gross differences in opportunity have consequential implications for intra- and inter-generational mobility, the national economy, civil society and the democratic polity. I will offer a framework for understanding the complex dynamics driving differences in opportunity from birth to adulthood, and how those differences interact with the changing labor market to determine adult outcomes and offer some thoughts on how we can close the opportunity gap.

About the Speaker

Henry Braun is the Boisi Professor Education and Public Policy and Director of the Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation and Education Policy at Boston College. From 1979 to 2006 he worked at the Educational Testing Service where he served as vice-president for research management and held the title of distinguished presidential appointee. He is a co-recipient of the 1986 Palmer O. Johnson Award of the AERA and a co-recipient of the NCME’s 1999 Award for Outstanding Technical Contribution to Educational Measurement. His interests include school and teacher accountability, the role of testing in education policy, and analysis of large-scale survey data.

For more information, contact David Budescu, Ph.D. (budescu@fordham.edu).

Presented by the Anne Anastasi Professorship in Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology. Additional support by the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and Psychology Department.

Alumni Accomplishments: Jessica H. Mirman, PhD

Fordham Psychology ADP alumna, Jessica H. Mirman, PhD, recently had a paper published in JAMA Ped about her research on teen drivers. The paper describes the results of a randomized controlled trial to test the effect of a parenting intervention on parents' supervision of pre-licensed teen drivers.

The intervention, developed by Dr. Mirman and her colleagues, called TeenDrivingPlan (TDP), is the first to successfully demonstrate that parents can be trained to be more effective practice supervisors and that this supervision is directly linked to teens' skill acquisition.

More information can be found on Dr. Mirman's blog post announcement.

Applied Developmental Psychology Student Wins 2014 APA Division 52 Student International Research Award

Sheena Jeswani, Applied Developmental Psychology, is one of four students awarded the 2014 APA Division 52 Student International Research Award, which recognizes promising graduate student research in international psychology.

Sheena submitted her Master's thesis, which focuses on social support, coping strategies, well-being, and depression in Filipino and American college students.

Congratulations, Sheena!

Marital Satisfaction Paper Selected as Editor's Choice

The Journal of Gerontology: Social Science has selected a collaborative paper by faculty members of the Fordham University Department of Psychology, the Jewish Home Lifecare's Research Institute on Aging at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and the Rutgers University Department of Sociology as Editor's Choice for their most recent issue.

Dr. Daniela Jopp, Dr. Laura Sosinsky, and Dr. Se-Kang Kim contributed to the article entitled: "His" and "Her" Marriage? The Role of Positive and Negative Marital Characteristics in Global Marital Satisfaction Among Older Adults.

Dr. Jopp was also recently featured in a CBS2 New York news segment on longevity and aging.

Congratulations to all involved!

Dr. Jopp's Centenarian Research Featured In The New York Times

Daniela S. Jopp, Ph.D. was recently interviewed for an article published in The New York Times about the Fordham Centenarian Study, a research projected directed by Dr. Jopp on the characteristics and experiences of people who approach 100 years of age.

Dr. Jopp discusses some of the main findings of her work, which indicates that people approaching 100 years of age tend to have a positive attitude despite having “on average between four and five illnesses, which are pretty disabling and hinder them from doing the things they want to do.”  Dr. Jopp’s work suggests that the key is their ability to accept and adapt to their impairments. Very old individuals also tend to be extroverted, have strong social networks, and exhibit “self-efficacy,” which is a feeling that they are in control of their own lives. Dr. Jopp also discusses a new phenomenon where, due to longer life expectancies, some parents and children are experiencing old age together, which can create unique challenges for a family.

The full article can be read on The New York Times website here.

Dr. Jopp is Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Applied Developmental Program and the head of the Adult Developmental and Aging Lab and the Fordham Centenarian Study.

A Call to Advocacy: The Past, Present, and Future of Child Well-Being

  The Future Child Advocates of Fordham presents:

A Call to Advocacy: The Past, Present, and Future of Child Well-Being

Wednesday, April 23, 2014  |  8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

1st Floor Auditorium | Keating Hall | Rose Hill Campus
441 East Fordham Road | Fordham University | NYC

Join members of the Future Child Advocates of Fordham (FCAF) for a multi-disciplinary conference with some of the country’s renowned childcare professionals who will discuss and examine the intersection of social, legal, psychological, and medical approaches to protecting vulnerable youth. Speakers will include:

•    Michael Menconi, FCRH ’15, Founder, President, Future Child Advocates of Fordham, Co-Founder, Future Child Advocates of America

•    Joshua L. Brown, PhD, Faculty Advisor, Future Child Advocates of Fordham, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Fordham University

•    Bernard P. Dreyer, MD, FAAP, Professor, Director of Behavioral Developmental, Pediatrics, NYU Langone Medical Center, Director of Pediatrics, Bellevue Hospital Center, Co-Chair of the Academic Pediatric Association Force on Child Poverty

•    Linda Cahill, MD, FAAP, Medical Director, J.E. & Z.B. Butler Child Advocacy Center, The Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

•    Christine Deyss, MS, Executive Director, Prevent Child Abuse New York

FCAF is a collaboration between J.E. & Z.B. Butler Child Advocacy Center of the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore and Fordham University’s Department of Psychology uses a social justice approach to ending the vicious cycle of child abuse in the Bronx and across America. As a completely student-run organization, FCAF’s primary goals include fundraising for local child advocacy centers, and providing direct emotional and social support to child abuse victims throughout New York City.

The conference is open to the public. A Q&A session will follow the speakers.
RSVP to the event at futurechild@fordham.edu
Facebook.com/FCAFordham | Futurechildadvocates.org

Fordham Coalition Forms to Advocate for Better Understanding of Autism

By Chris Gosier

A coalition of Fordham professors, students, and administrators has come together around the goal of improving the lives of autistic people by changing the way they're treated in American society.

It’s a long-brewing effort that made strides in November 2013 with a conference among Fordham researchers, educators, and representatives of advocacy groups from outside the University. Next up are more conferences, research, and efforts to change policies and attitudes surrounding the capabilities of autistic people and how they can best be helped.

The full article can be read here on Inside Fordham.

Applied Developmental Psychology Student Interviewed for Psychology Today

Amanda Leeder, Applied Developmental Psychology, was recently interviewed for an article entitled “Quantifying Engagement in Autism Education Models,” published online on the Breaking Barriers blog of Psychology Today magazine. Amanda was one of several experts invited to contribute to an article focusing on the use of empirical data to evaluate and improve current teaching methods, educational programs, and therapeutic interventions developed for students with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Amanda was interviewed about her expertise with researching and implementing therapeutic interventions for ASD in home and school settings. She discussed the necessity for the fields of psychology and education to rely on the integrity of scientific research for evaluation of the utility and efficacy of therapeutic interventions and education programs. However, the development of evidenced-based practices for ASD has been limited.

“While it is no surprise that the term ‘evidenced-based practice’ holds a lot of weight, the evaluation of educational interventions for the ASD population is still in its nascent stages, partly due to the challenge of quantifying implementation practices and goals for these learners.”

Amanda said the paucity of research that is considered valid and reliable can be a problem and misguide families seeking effective treatment and education programs for a child with ASD.

“Many families of individuals with autism assume that a particular approach will be successful for their child, based on anecdotal evidence, case studies, or because an approach is ‘evidence based’. While in twenty years this term will be a reliable indicator of which school parents should enroll their child, the current state of research on autism education does not allow for this approach.”

She concluded the interview with a recommendation for families with a child who is currently in need of these services.

“The best bet for families right now is to comprehensively research what therapies and educational approaches are out there, and try to seek out professionals and experts in the field who will give them unbiased answers about autism education.”

Amanda came to Fordham after obtaining a Masters degree in general psychology from New York University. She plans to complete her dissertation on the role that non-ASD siblings play in ASD children's development. She is also completing her practicum at Emerge & See Education Center in Manhattan, where she works with therapists to develop new methods to teach basic conversation skills to children with ASD.

The full article can be read on the Psychology Today website.

Clinical Psychology Student Wins Diversity Scholarship

Jeremy J. Eggleston, Clinical Psychology, has been awarded a Michael Sullivan Diversity Scholarship by the Ohio Psychiatric Association. The scholarship is intended to support research, training, and community projects in the area of diversity.

Jeremy’s research focuses on minority-identified populations living in the inner city who have been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS and often face stigmas of both ethnic minority status and sexual orientation. He is currently writing his dissertation with the mentorship of Kathleen Schiaffino, Ph.D., Chair of the Department of Psychology, which focuses on gay and bisexual men of color and the various psychological, spiritual, and physical-health related outcomes of their post-traumatic growth. He is interested in the effects of personal spirituality and religious engagement in this population, and hopes to shed further light upon its role in empowering minority-identified populations.

For more information, please visit Fordham Notes 

An Assessment of the Mental Health Care Needs and Utilization by Families of Children with a Food Allergy

 Dr. Annunziato was interviewed by www.dugdug.com, a website that aims to make scholarly work more easily available to the general public, for their series on health care needs and utilization. She shares recent findings showing that although they recognized their mental health care need, service utilization was poor among families of children with food allergies. In medical populations, offering mental health services within the context of routine care may be needed. The full interview can be read here:
http://www.dugdug.com/dr-rachel-annunziato-discusses-mental-health-care

Centenarian researcher honors 100th birthday of West Berlin City Hall

Dr. Daniela Jopp gave a presentation on the Second Heidelberg Centenarian Study at a reception celebrating the 100th birthday of the former West Berlin city hall, Rathaus Schoeneberg, and also served as an expert at a following round table discussion.  Findings from the recently completed study highlight that although all centenarians have multiple health conditions, about 80% of them are satisfied with their lives. Also, centenarians have an accepting attitude towards death, but do not long for it. Instead, 72% have a strong will to live and value their lives highly.

The Second Heidelberg Centenarian Study is part of an international network of studies which also includes the Fordham Centenarian Study. Study findings from the network will help to create a more realistic and positive view on very old age and will allow better planning for the support needs of very old individuals and their families.

Dr. Daniela Jopp

Dr. Daniela Jopp