My dissertation takes a multimodal approach to elucidate the role of parental modulation of their child’s fear regulation in childhood anxiety. Study 1 leverages ecological momentary assessment to assess parental assistance with their child’s use of specific fear regulation strategies. Study 2 investigates how parental modulation of their child’s neural fear responses translates into behavioral patterns involved in the maintenance of anxiety. Finally, Study 3 examines how these factors predict the efficacy of parent-based treatment.

Severe reactive aggression in childhood is highly impairing. A lack of valid and reliable assessment tools poses a challenge to research and effective diagnosis and treatment. My dissertation critically reviews the landscape of existing aggression measures and then develops a novel tool using modern psychometric methods to meet current needs. The resulting 16-item Reactive Aggression Assessment (RAGA-16) is a brief, free, parent-report questionnaire with nationally-representative non-clinical norms as well as comparison data from clinic-referred children.

The surge of ADHD-content on TikTok presents major challenges due to widespread misinformation. This dissertation aims to understand the effects of misinformation on ADHD-related knowledge, perceptions, and treatment-seeking intentions. A sample of treatment-naïve college students will view content from one of three conditions (accurate ADHD-content, misinformation ADHD-content, control content) and complete pre- and post-content survey measures. This research is a crucial first-step in elucidating the role of misinformation in the shortage of ADHD providers and medication.

My dissertation study uses an intensive daily diary methodology to examine emotional (negative affect) and social (peer conflict) daily experiences that may explain the harmful spillover of community violence exposure into the classroom, ultimately impacting school engagement in Latino adolescents. Working with a sample of Latino high school students exposed to high levels of community violence, I hope to increase our understanding of the mechanisms by which community violence impacts the school experiences of adolescents.