I am interested in understanding why children differ in their temperaments and if these differences have developmental significance (i.e., do they predict outcomes in other domains?). I am also interested in how children’s temperaments change with development and the factors than bring about developmental change. I use genetically-sensitive designs (e.g., twin and adoption studies) to disentangle genetic and environmental influences on temperament and related behaviors and to examine the factors that contribute to continuity and change in temperament across childhood.

My research uses observational methods, actigraph methodology (motion recorders) and parent rating measures of temperament across a wide range of ages. Because I’m interested in development and how children change as they get older, most of my research involves longitudinal assessments of children at multiple ages.

This work has been funded by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Institute of Child Health and Development and has been published in leading developmental journals such as Child Development, Developmental Science, Developmental Psychology, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.