Team | Child Immigration and Developmental Psychiatry

Advisors
Child Language and Development Psychiatry

Principal Investigator Claudio O. Toppelberg, MD is currently working with the guidance and sponsorhip by two leading researchers with expertise in the areas of child mental health and language development.

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Stuart T. Hauser, MD, PhD
Dr. Stuart T. Hauser is the former president of Judge Baker Children's Center and a Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Hauser has directed two longitudinal studies of adolescent development. The first study focuses on psychosocial determinants and consequences of adolescent onset insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. The second study addresses family aspects of adolescent ego development in high school students and psychiatric patients. The latter study, Paths Over Time and Across Generations, is now in its second decade and extends into the young adult and mid-life adult years. This research has evolved into a three-generation study of development that includes the parents, spouses, and children of the original adolescent subjects. Central questions in this 25-year development study concern trajectories of psychosocial development from adolescence through several phases of adulthood, and their relation to major tasks of these years – forming of close and romantic peer relationships, attachments with family of origin, beginning new families, parenting, and work relationships.

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Catherine Snow, PhD
Catherine Snow is an expert on language and literacy development in children, focusing on how oral language skills are acquired and how they relate to literacy outcomes. Snow has recently chaired two national panels: the National Academy of Sciences committee that prepared the report "Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children," and the Rand Reading Study Group that prepared "Reading for Understanding: Toward an R&D Program in Reading Comprehension." Her current research activities include a longitudinal study of language and literacy skills among low-income children who have been followed for 15 years since age three; following the language development of young children participating in the Early Head Start intervention; studying the vocabulary development of first- and second-language learners; and considering aspects of transfer from first to second language in the domains of language and literacy. Her recently published book, Preparing Our Teachers: Opportunities for Better Reading Instruction, is one of several efforts she is involved in to develop consensus among teacher-educators about what pre- and in-service elementary teachers need to know about language and literacy. Snow has also written about bilingualism and its relation to language policy issues such as bilingual education in the United States and in developing nations, and about testing policy. She is currently involved in efforts to improve middle-school literacy outcomes, in partnership with other Boston area researchers and the Boston Public Schools.