On March 30th, 2023, The ACE Project team provided a virtual presentation for Youth Action Team Meeting for the United Way of Broward County Commission on Behavioral Health & Drug Prevention. Graduate Students Benjelene Sutherland and Nilofar Fallah-Sohy presented on vaping-related content and ACE Project findings. We were invited by Jenna Stein, Prevention Specialist, who we have previously collaborated with. There were over 40 attendees.
Yesterday, ReACH Lab member, Julie Cristello, was celebrated for her successful match for clinical internship. She will be starting her clinical internship at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Congratulations, Julie!
ReACH Lab graduate students, Nilofar Fallah-Sohy and Sarah Hartmann, presented at the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Conference. The 2023 SRCD conference took place from March 23-25 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Nilofar’s presentation titled “Examining Reciprocal Relations Between Parental Knowledge, Child Disclosure, Parental Legitimacy Beliefs, and Adolescent Alcohol Use” examined prospective bidirectional effects between parental knowledge and child disclosure alongside youth-reported alcohol use and perceived legitimacy of parental authority. This multi-informant study’s findings showed that parental knowledge and child disclosure were found to weaken in response to youth alcohol use. A positive reciprocal association between parental knowledge and child disclosure was found in early adolescence, whereas an inverse reciprocal association was found between parental knowledge and child alcohol use in later years. This study also found that parental legitimacy beliefs were associated with reduced alcohol use. In turn, youth alcohol use led to reductions in parental knowledge and child disclosure.
Sarah’s presentation titled “The Role of Sleep as a Pathway Linking Temperament and Problem Behavior in Adolescence” assessed newly identified sleep profiles as potential mediators between previously identified profiles of early adolescent temperament and subsequent internalizing and externalizing symptomatology. The findings converge with prior work suggesting that adolescent sleep significantly impacts problem behaviors. Conversely, adolescent temperament was not shown to significantly impact proximal problem behavior when accounting for prior behavioral difficulties. Nonetheless, present findings suggest that positive sleep hygiene may help to mitigate behavioral problems in adolescents.
On December 7th, 2022, ACE Project graduate student, Katharine Crooks provided a virtual presentation for 6th to 8th-grade students and teachers on the harms of vaping. Ms. Crooks provided information on current rates of e-cigarette use/vaping among teens and described potential risks of e-cigarette use/vaping on teens and the developing brain. There were 100 students in attendance.
On November 30th, 2022, ACE Project graduate students, Benjelene Sutherland and Patricio Viera Perez, attended the student success center at Robert Morgan Educational Center to provide a presentation to students on the harms of vaping. They provided information on current rates of e-cigarette use/vaping among teens and described potential risks of e-cigarette use/vaping on teens and the developing brain. Over 20 students attended the presentation.
Reach Lab graduate students Megan Hare and Sarah Hartman both received an FIU Psychology department seed fund for their independent projects. Megan Hare’s project will be the first step in developing a novel adult self-report measure of emotional competence. This measure will allow us to better capture adults’ emotional functioning as well as improve our understanding of how it impacts children’s emotional competence.
Sarah Hartmann will use this award to fund her dissertation project. Within this project, Sarah will be utilizing mixed-method participatory research to inform the development of a novel culturally anchored parent report of adolescent temperament tailored to Latino families residing in the U.S.
ReACH graduate student, Megan Hare, and ReACH lab manager, Michelle Villar, received a notification from Development and Psychopathology that their manuscript was accepted for publication. Their paper titled: “Pathways to substance use: Examining conduct problems and parenting behaviors from preschool to adolescence” examines how child conduct problems, parenting behaviors, and parents’ own antisocial behavior relate from preschool to adolescence and eventuate in substance use.
On November 8th, 2022, members of the ACE Project team presented for the Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) annual student services mini-conference. Dr. Elisa Trucco and ACE Project graduate student Katharine Crooks provided two presentations with support from ACE Project program coordinator, Nasreen Hidmi and M-DCPS Liaison, Ana Tigerino. The sessions provided up-to-date information on rates of e-cigarette use/vaping among teens, the impact of vaping on the body and, in particular, the brain, and reasons why teens are likely to start initiating e-cigarette use. Over 50 teachers/counselors attended the presentations across both sessions.
On November 12th, Benjelene Sutherland, a third-year graduate student in the Cognitive Neuroscience program, presented her ongoing research: “Amygdala-insula functional connectivity and its mediating role between hopelessness, depression, and adolescent substance use” at the Society for Neuroscience Conference 2022 held in San Diego, California.
Benjelene’s project examines the mediated effects of amygdala-insula functional connectivity and depressive problems between hopelessness and adolescent e-cigarette, marijuana and alcohol use.
On October 27th, 2022, ACE Project graduate students, Nilofar Fallah-Sohy and Patricio Viera Perez, attended Shenandoa Middle school to provide a presentation to students on the harms of vaping. They provided information on current rates of e-cigarette use/vaping among teens and described potential risks of e-cigarette use/vaping on teens and the developing brain. Over 280 students attended the presentation.