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OUR WORK
The Developmental Transitions Laboratory at UCR seeks to answer four fundamental questions surrounding the relationship between child development and psychopathology:
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- Why does psychopathology increase during the transition from childhood to adolescence?
- When does adolescent-onset psychopathology start and how does it develop over time?
- Why do some children experience such difficulties while others do not?
- What can we do to help children navigate the transition more smoothly?
Current research in our lab focuses on:
- The role of puberty
- Familial influences (e.g., parental psychopathology, parent-child relationships)
- The impact of alternative family planning (e.g., infertility, adoption)
- Child characteristics that function as both psychological risks and strengths in development
By conducting developmental studies with children and families using various research designs, we hope to gain a better understanding of the emergence, change, stability, and desistance of psychological (mal)adjustment during childhood and adolescence. We believe that finding the answers to our questions is a pivotal step in the ultimate goal of informing parents and applied communities on how to promote healthy development in children and their families.
November 2025: Congratulations to DTL lead Dr. Misaki Natsuaki for being awarded a $1 million gift from the Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center Foundation, which will support research on child abuse prevention. For more information, please visit this article.
November 2025: A huge congratulations to DTL undergraduate student, Allison Kim, for receiving the Honors Excellence in Research (HEIR) Scholarship from UCR for her Honors Capstone!
You can take a look at past lab updates in our Archived News!