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Marion O'Brien

My primary research interests involve parenting, child care, and children's social and cognitive development. I am currently collaborating with other researchers at UNCG on the STAR project examining emotional and cognitive contributions to early school success (for more information, see http://www.star4kids.org/). I also contribute to the RIGHT Track project, a longitudinal study of children's social behavior (http://www.uncg.edu/~psycap/righttrack.html). I am also interested in parenting and family adaptation when a child is diagnosed with a developmental disability, and published a book for professionals who work with families of children with autism, Beyond the Autism Diagnosis (http://www.brookespublishing.com/store/books/obrien-7519/index.htm). For the last 15 years I have been one of the investigators for the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, a national longitudinal study of more than 1,200 families from 10 locations around the U.S. For more information about this study, see http://secc.rti.org. At UNCG, I am the Director of the Family Research Center (www.uncg.edu/frc), where faculty and graduate students conduct research on a wide range of issues involving families and children. I teach graduate courses in social development and research methods. I also serve the School of Human Environmental Sciences (http://www.uncg.edu/hes/) as Associate Dean for Research. In this capacity, I work to enhance the School's scholarship and research mission.

There are 9 included publications by Marion O'Brien :

TitleDateViewsBrief Description
Cardiovascular Regulation Profile Predicts Developmental Trajectory of BMI and Pediatric Obesity 2011 169 The present study examined the role of cardiovascular regulation in predicting pediatric obesity. Participants for this study included 268 children (141 girls) obtained from a larger ongoing longitudinal study. To assess cardiac vagal regulation, res...
Contributions of Child’s Physiology and Maternal Behavior to Children’s Trajectories of Temperamental Reactivity 2010 122 Trajectories of children’s temperamental reactivity (negative affectivity and surgency) were examined in a community sample of 370 children across the ages of 4 to 7 using Hierarchical Linear Modeling. Children’s physiological reactivity (respiratory...
Differential Effects of Maternal Sensitivity to Infant Distress and Nondistress on Social-Emotional Functioning 2009 114 Associations between maternal sensitivity to infant distress and nondistress and infant social-emotional adjustment were examined in a subset of dyads from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care (N = 376). Mothers reported on infant temperament at 1 and...
Family Stress and Parental Responses to Children’s Negative Emotions: Tests of the Spillover, Crossover, and Compensatory Hypotheses 2009 188 The relations between 4 sources of family stress (marital dissatisfaction, home chaos, parental depressive symptoms, and job role dissatisfaction) and the emotion socialization practice of mothers’ and fathers’ responses to children’s negative emotio...
Individual differences in trajectories of emotion regulation processes: The effects of maternal depressive symptomatology and children’s physiological regulation. 2008 830 Trajectories of emotion regulation processes were examined in a community sample of 269 children across the ages of 4 to 7 using hierarchical linear modeling. Maternal depressive symptomatology (Symptom Checklist–90) and children’s physiological reac...
Moderate Vagal Withdrawal in 3.5-Year-Old Children is Associated with Optimal Performance on Executive Function Tasks 2010 110 Vagal tone (measured via respiratory sinus arrhythmia, RSA) and vagal withdrawal (measured by decreases in RSA) have been identified as physiological measures of self-regulation, but little is known how they may relate to the regulation of cognitive ...
Parental ADHD Symptomology and Ineffective Parenting: The Connecting Link of Home Chaos 2010 175 Objective. This study examines links between maternal and paternal attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms and parenting practices that require inhibition of impulses, sustained attention, and consistency; the role of home chaos in t...
Parenting and the decline of physical activity from age 9 to 15 2011 57 Background: There is a rapid decline in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) during middle childhood and adolescence. Information on the environmental factors implicated in this decline is limited. This study focuses on family factors associ...
The Relationship of Body Mass Index and Behavior in Children 2008 50 Objectives- To examine reciprocal relations between body mass index (BMI), internalizing problems and externalizing problems from infancy through middle childhood with a focus on sex and history of overweight. Study design- Data from 1254 children i...