Projects currently under various stages of development include the following:
Adolescent Development in CHARGE. My collaborators, in addition to my students, on th is project are Kim Blake, a clinical pediatrician from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Jeremy Kirk, an endocrinologist from Birmingham, England, Meg Hefner, a genetic counselor from St. Louis University in Missouri, and George Williams, a pediatrician from Sydney, Australia. Adolescent development in CHARGE is very poorly understood. Children almost always need hormonal assistance to enter puberty. So the interaction of delayed or absent puberty and challenging behavior is of particular interest in our lab.
Sleep in CHARGE. Parents have reported serious sleep difficulties. My collaborators, in addition to my students, are Honey Heussler and Jim Papadopoulos, both pediatric sleep specialists in Australia, and George Williams, a pediatrician from Australia. We have analyzed the data, and sleep is very disordered in a majority of our sample, and seems to have an impact on both behavior and parent well being.
Stress in CHARGE. My lab assistant Kasee Stratton has taken the lead on this project. She has been interviewing young adults with CHARGE about their experience of stress growing up and major sources of stress. She has completed about a dozen in-depth interviews and is starting the process of writing up her findings.
The experience of siblings of children with CHARGE. My lab assistant Tracy Olson has taken the lead on this project. A pilot study has been conducted, and our next step is to refine the instrumentation and get a good sample. The challenge in this study has been to find ways to get at some of the negative experiences along with the positive, as we have found that siblings often do not want to disclose negatives. Kris Haggerty, an adult sibling, is a co-author on this project.
Case studies in CHARGE. Lee Wachtel, a psychiatrist at Kennedy Krieger Institute of Johns Hopkins is my collaborator on this project. Lee has several cases that she has worked with on an in-patient basis, and I have several cases that I have consulted with on an out-patient basis. We are working on an article or two that can demonstrate the variability of problems and treatments.
Projects under consideration include research on: pain, sense of well-being, obsessive-compulsive behavior, anesthesiology and its effects, and parenting.
We welcome undergraduate and (potential) graduate students with an interest in our work to apply to assist in the lab
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