Welcome to the DPS Distinguishing Contribution award talk: Dieter Wolke

In this talk Professor Dieter Wolke will deliver his Developmental Psychology Section 2020 Distinguished Contribution Award Talk: ‘Born at risk or into risk environments: Consequences for development into adulthood’. After the talk there will be time for questions. 

For more information on Professor Wolke’s research please see here. 

For more information on this event please click here 

Speakers: 

Professor Dieter Wolke
University of Warwick, Department of Psychology and Centre for Early Life

'Born at risk or into risk environments: Consequences for development into adulthood'

Risk refers to the increased probability of experiencing an adverse outcome. Over the last decades I have been studying three major potential risks for development: being born very preterm (VP; i.e. before 32 weeks gestation); experiencing crying, sleeping and feeding problems (i.e. infant regulatory problems) in infancy and finally, bullying at home by siblings or bullying by peers in school. Each of these are risks that cannot be studied experimentally for obvious ethical reasons but require observation studies.

When I started this research there were no prospective studies that had investigated the effects of any of these risk factors from infancy or childhood into adulthood. It thus necessitated the design and conduct of new studies to follow these at risk children over decades. We either conceived new studies (e.g. the Bavarian Longitudinal Study, the Arvo-Yllpoe Longitudinal Study, GAIN study), implemented relevant measures in ongoing longitudinal studies (e.g. ALSPAC, MCS, Understanding Society) or developed collaborative analysis or data platforms across cohort studies to replicate findings and establish universality of risks in different countries and social conditions.

While the risks occur early in pregnancy, infancy or childhood, there are many other potential influences across childhood and adolescence that shape development into adulthood. Thus, we always considered in our studies the environments the risk children are born into and influences within and beyond the family. I will provide an overview of some of our major findings of the long term consequences of being born very preterm, having had infant regulatory problems or having been bullied by peers or siblings. I will discuss the advantages of collaboration across disciplines as well as some methodological challenges and implications for research and practice for the future.

The Developmental Section Annual Conference 2021 will provide a forum for dissemination, discussion, and debate in relation to a range of cutting-edge issues attracting attention from academics and practitioners working in the field of Developmental Psychology.

The online conference will consist of keynote speakers (including Professor Barbara Rogoff and Professor Margaret Snowling), symposium, oral and poster presentations, workshops and networking opportunities.

Submissions now open! Deadline, 10:00am, Monday 19 April 2021

Click here for further information and to submit and abstract.

Japanese Society for Developmental Psychology (JSDP) 2021 annual conference - joint with the BPS

Monday 29 March 2021, 10:30 - 12:30 (British Summer Time), Online

Invitation to workshop on:
Methodological innovations in the face of Corona lockdown: Lessons for the future

Short Description
This workshop will be chaired by Peter Mitchell and will incorporate two 20-minute informal presentations from researchers working in the UK and in Japan, followed by a general discuss on methodological innovation and lessons learned over the past 12 months.

Background and context
Over the past year, our research efforts have been disrupted by lockdown and social distancing measures imposed by our respective governments to contain the spread of Corona virus infection. This circumstance has impacted considerably on our research activities. It has led to extensive restrictions on research and in response, many researchers have developed imaginative innovations to press ahead with their research agenda. Indeed, there has been great invention in adapting research methods to run online, enabling us to capture data from children and families in their home environment, exploiting equipment that is widely available in modern homes. In some cases, though the research objectives do not lend themselves to adaptation to online data capture. Lessons can be learned from this experience that could potentially revolutionize how we do research even when lockdown and social distancing measures are a thing of the past
The purpose of this workshop is to host a discussion of these issues: the challenges we faced, how we overcame them through invention and innovation and areas where it was not possible to adapt methods. This will offer a great opportunity to share experiences and best practice across research environments in the UK and in Japan.
Participation to this event is free of charge. If you are interested in participating, please save the date. We will keep you informed further details on this event.
We are delighted to have the following three speakers who share their stories:

Title: Half a longitudinal study and one pandemic later
Dr. Karla Holmboe, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford
Abstract:
I am going to tell you my story about what happened when the Covid-19 pandemic shut down my longitudinal study. This was my ‘dream study’ that I had been building up to for several years. We had been testing infants longitudinally pretty much non-stop for about a year when we had to stop testing due to the pandemic. From one day to the next, me and my small team went from testing 2-4 babies in the lab every day to working from home for over 9 months. We have found ways to adapt – we have been coding, analysing and writing up (as much as we could under the circumstances), and we have taken the opportunity to study the effects that the pandemic has had on the families we had recruited into the study. So there have been some silver linings – research questions that we would not have been able to address outside a pandemic. It has not been an easy journey and it is not over yet. I am sharing this story with you because I know there are many researchers out there, especially PhD students and early career researchers in precarious employment, who have had their lives and careers turned upside-down by this. You are not alone – the losses have to be acknowledged I think – and then we can look forward to what will hopefully be a brighter future where we can throw ourselves into studying development again.

Title: On remote looking time studies during the new normal Dr. Monica Barbir, International Research Center for Neurointelligence, University of Tokyo Dr. Sho Tsuji, International Research Center for Neurointelligence, University of Tokyo
Abstract:
The current pandemic has shifted research from labs to the safety of homes. However, there is more to the shift than simply moving an experiment from a computer in the lab to a computer in a participant’s home. The sheer differences in testing environment necessitate adaptation and innovation. In our talk, we will present our experience in transferring infant studies, many of which are conducted with equipment not available in homes such as eye-trackers, online. We will outline one infant online study we are currently conducting in Japan and a larger international collaborative effort to advance online protocols and practices called Many Babies At Home. Many of the adaptations and innovations we will discuss come with advantages that extend beyond the pandemic context, such as reaching a broader participant population in comparison to in lab studies.

Information on how to access this online workshop will be sent to you in due course.
To join this workshop, please use the below link to register. We may have to limit the number of participants to around 30 people to facilitate discussions. 

https://forms.gle/arEX4XLV6v3eTmAF8 

Developmental Psychology Section: Margaret Donaldson and Neil O’Connor Award Winner Talks

10 September 2020, 10:30am - 12:00pm

This webinar is free to attend and open to BPS members and the general public. Registration is required. See Pricing Tab for more information. Click here to find out more and register.

The Annual General Meeting (AGM) for Developmental Section Members will take place after this event (12.15pm via Zoom). To download the agenda, papers and zoom link details please click here.