2010 News Releases
Local and National Research Team Awarded Grant to Study Nature vs. Nurture in the 21st Century
Posted December 20, 2010
Contact: Leslie Leve (lesliel@oslc.org) or Debbie Wetherald (debbiew@oslc.org); 541-485-2711
EUGENE, Ore. -- (Dec. 20, 2010) Two age-old questions are guaranteed to spark a heated discussion around the dinner table: Which came first: the chicken or the egg? And the classic debate of nature versus nurture.
The jury's still out on the chicken, but a team of researchers from the Oregon Social Learning Center (OSLC), the Pennsylvania State University, Yale University, and UC Riverside are discovering new ways to approach the complex world of human behavior and genetics. The group was recently awarded a five-year grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to investigate the interplay between genetic, prenatal, and postnatal environmental influences on early pathways to antisocial behavior, depression, and anxiety among elementary school children.
"The study takes the basic nature vs. nurture debate into the 21st century because we are no longer pitting nature against nurture; instead, we're studying how the two interact and how one influences the other," says Leslie Leve, OSLC senior scientist and co-director on the new study.
The grant will fund an extension of the ongoing Early Growth and Development Study, an adoption study of 561 birth parents and adoptive families that aims to understand the interplay between family and inherited contributions to child development (to learn more about the Early Growth and Development Study, visit https://earlydev.oslc.org/). The new study will expand this body of research to conduct a mental health assessment of adopted children and their parents.
"This study also helps OSLC bridge the gap between research and practice by maintaining an already mutually-beneficial relationship with local, regional, and national adoption agencies," says Leve. The study is comprised of a national sample of families with children who were adopted at birth, forty percent of whom live in the Pacific Northwest. Close collaboration with adoption agency directors and staff was instrumental in launching the study.
Local Researchers receive funding to study and improve
the adjustment and well-being of military families
Posted November 10, 2010
Eugene, OR
Contact: David DeGarmo or Debbie Wetherald 541-485-2711
EUGENE, Ore. -- (Nov. 10, 2010) Drs. David DeGarmo and Marion Forgatch senior and emeritus scientists (respectively) at Oregon Social Learning Center (OSLC) and will collaborate with researchers at the Veterans Administration
(VA) and the University of Minnesota (UMN) to address this country's urgent need to understand
how deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq affects the families of our newest generation of National Guard and Reserve veterans. These studies will look at the mental health effects of deployment on
veterans in the field and their family members at home. Together these projects will help address the significant stressors of military families to better understand and improve long-term adjustment upon
return home by implementing and evaluating a post-deployment parent training program.
Supported by funding from the Health Services Research and Development Service of the Department of Veterans Affairs, DeGarmo will serve as lead methodologist and evaluator on a four
year study headed by Dr. Melissa Polusny at the VA looking at nearly 2,000 soldiers and their families to examine mental health and changes in well-being: pre-deployment, on active duty, and
post-deployment. The primary mental health focus is to examine effects on parenting roles and child adjustment. Secondary aims focus on the effects of multiple deployments on a couple and examining gender differences in post-deployment mental health. This study will facilitate the development of strategies to reduce stress and enhance family support for veterans.
Forgatch and DeGarmo will also work with Dr. Abigail Gewirtz at UMN on a grant entitled, "After Deployment: Adapting Parenting Tools (ADAPT)." Gewirtz, the principal investigator on the study, is an expert in trauma, resilience and children's health and will work to assess child stress during deployment. Forgatch, who has disseminated the OSLC-developed Parent Management Training – Oregon Model (PMTO) on a wide scale in Norway and Michigan through her organization
Implementation Sciences International Inc., will contribute her extensive knowledge to help adapt and implement the PMTO model to focus on the specific needs of military children and parents. IRIS Media, a local Eugene business focusing on video-based educational curriculums, will help produce and develop the PMTO into a program adapted specifically for military families. Funding for this component of the research comes from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and a NIDA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant.
Oregon Social Learning Center Senior Scientist Accepts Membership in Two Related National Policy Organizations Based at Harvard
Posted February 10, 2010
Contact: Phil Fisher, 541-485-2711
EUGENE, Ore. -- (Jan. 21, 2010) -- Phil Fisher, a senior scientist at the Oregon Social Learning Center and a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon (UO), has accepted membership invitations to the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child and the National Forum on Early Childhood Policy and Programs (formerly the National Forum on Early Childhood Program Evaluation).
The two groups, both based at Harvard University, have leading roles in shaping science and policies in early childhood research and intervention.
Fisher, who earned his doctorate in psychology in 1993 from the UO, is known for his research on childhood trauma and foster and adopted children. He studies the impacts of stressful experiences on children and the design of treatment programs for abused and neglected children. His research examines how such stresses impact brain biology. He also serves as co-director of a National Institute of Mental Health-funded grant examining the effects of early experiences on the activity of specific hormones (glucocorticoids) in the brain.
The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, which Fisher joins as a contributing member, was established in 2003. The council is a multi-disciplinary collaboration of scientists and scholars from universities across the United States and Canada designed to bring the science of early childhood and early brain development to bear on public policy decision-making. The council is widely known for it publication in October 2000 of "From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development."
The National Forum on Early Childhood Policy and Programs, created as an initiative of the council, strives to explain why public investments should be made in the early childhood years. Fisher's initial appointment with the forum is for three years.
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