Research in my laboratory investigates the many interacting causal factors that can lead children and adolescents to have serious emotional and behavioral problems. Our work then uses this research to a) enhance the assessment and diagnosis of childhood psychopathology and b) design more effective interventions to prevent and treat such problems. Some key goals of this work is to:
to advance knowledge on the dispositional and contextual factors that can place children and adolescents at risk for developing severe antisocial, aggressive, and violent behavior that results in a diagnosis of Conduct Disorder or an arrest for illegal behavior;
to uncover the many different causal processes that can lead children to display serious conduct problems, with a special focus on children who show a callous and unemotional interpersonal style (e.g., lacking empathy and guilt);
to study people at various developmental stages (e.g., infancy, preschool, elementary school-age, adolescence, young adulthood) to provide a lifespan perspective on antisocial and aggressive behavior;
to integrate forensic research on the psychopathic personality and developmental research on conscience development; and
to use research to improve assessments and interventions for antisocial and aggressive youth in mental health settings, schools, and the juvenile justice system
