Child Clinical Psychology Program
The Child Clinical Area of Emphasis
The child clinical area of emphasis provides training in the etiology, assessment, treatment and prevention of childhood disorders. A major focus is on the prevention of child mental health problems among children and families under stress. Thus, most of our child clinical faculty also participate in our community-prevention area of emphasis, and in our NIMH-funded Prevention Research Center. Training is provided through formal courses, faculty-supervised research projects, in-house clinical practica, placements at mental health agencies in the community, and outreach efforts with local schools. Students have an opportunity to work with faculty who are studying topics such as the influence of stress and coping on children’s mental health, adaptation of children from divorced families, effects of bereavement, minority mental health, family and contextual influences on risk and resilience, longitudinal studies linking child risk and resilience to later life outcomes, the development and intergenerational transmission of substance use disorders, outcomes for serious juvenile offenders, and the development and evaluation of prevention programs for children and their families. We emphasize the importance of a developmental perspective and students have opportunities to work with faculty in Developmental Psychology.
Other Relevant Resources
Child clinical training at ASU benefits from the presence of the ASU Preventive Intervention Research Center, which provides research assistantships in a variety of large-scale field projects and intervention trials focused on the prevention of mental health problems for children and families under stress. In addition, students are eligible for pre-doctoral fellowships in our NIMH-funded Training Program on Child Mental Health/Primary Prevention. All clinical students are invited to attend the weekly seminar meetings of this training program to discuss topics in child mental health and primary prevention. In addition, our in-house training clinic provides opportunities for practicum classes in child assessment and treatment, and work with local schools. The Psychology Department also houses a Child Study Laboratory with programs for preschool children and research opportunities. The Quantitative program within the Psychology Department provides training in the methodologies necessary for longitudinal studies of developmental trajectories and for evaluating the effects of intervention on those trajectories. Outside of the Psychology Department, faculty from the School of Social and Family Dynamics teach a variety of relevant courses and offer research collaborations and opportunities for our students.
Child Clinical Placements in the Community
Interested students can complete their required clinical placements in community settings that deliver services to children and families such as Phoenix Children’s Hospital and Southwest Human Development. In addition, placements are available within the child and family team of our in-house training clinic, including work with child assessment and treatment, and outreach work with local schools.
A Sample of Current Projects
Dr. Laurie Chassin directs the Adult and Family Development Project.This program represents a series of studies of children in alcoholic and non-alcoholic families. The research has been funded continuously by NIDA and NIAAA since 1987. The goal of this project is to understand the intergenerational transmission of risk for alcoholism and drug abuse/dependence. Dr. Chassin is also co-principal investigator of the Pathways to Desistance Project (studying desistance from criminal offending among serious juvenile offenders) and the IU Smoking Survey (a NIDA-funded study investigating the natural history and intergenerational transmission of tobacco use).
Dr. Linda Luecken, Dr. Keith Crnic, and Dr. Nancy Gonzales were awarded a 5-year NIH grant "Coregulatory Mechanisms and Postpartum Depression in low-income Mexican American women". The project began 2/20/2009 and will follow 330 mothers and their infants for the first postpartum year.The biopsychosocial processes by which mothers and infants co-regulate each other’s emotions, behavior, and physiology are important foci in the prediction of maternal depression over the first postpartum year.
Dr. Nancy Gonzales is the Principal Investigator of Bridges to High School/Puentes a La Secundaria. “Bridges”is a multi-cohort, experimental field trial of a culturally competent intervention to prevent school dropout and mental health disorders for low-income Mexican American adolescents. Dr. Gonzales is also a co-investigator of the La Familia project, which is a longitudinal study of 700 Mexican American families that examines the interactions among individual, family, school, and community influences on development.
Dr. Armando Piña is a member of the Developmental faculty and also is affiliated with the Clinical faculty. He is interested in the study of intra-individual level risk factors in the development of anxiety disorders in youths and the evaluation of psychosocial preventive and treatment interventions for use with this population. Dr. Piña's work integrates ethnocultural and child-adolescent anxiety research and is aimed at developing empirically informed, culturally robust assessment and intervention strategies for culturally diverse youth.
Dr. Irwin Sandler directs the Family Bereavement Program Follow-up. The project is a federally funded NIMH (R01 MH49155) six year follow-up of 244 adolescents/young adults and their caregivers who participated in an experimental evaluation of a preventive intervention program for families who have experienced parental death.
Dr. Sharlene Wolchik is the Principal Investigator of the New Beginnings Program Fifteen-Year Follow-up. This grant supports a follow-up of the effects of the two preventive interventions for children from divorced families, a mother program and a dual-component program that includes separate groups for mothers and children, relative to the literature control condition. A wide range of outcomes are assessed, including mental health problems and disorders, substance use disorders and problems, physical health outcomes, and accomplishment of key young adult developmental tasks and competencies.