Current Research

Support BRANCH Parenting Program

The Virginia Tech Child Study Center and Virginia Tech Autism Clinic & Center for Autism Research, in partnership with the University of Virginia and Virginia Commonwealth University, seek to assess the feasibility, acceptability, and benefit of the Support BRANCH program used in combination with clinician-delivered behavioral therapy as part of a stepped-care model for reducing child behavior problems and increasing parents’ feelings of competency in supporting youth behavior.

Parents will be compensated up to $75 for completing all parts of the study.

RELAX Intervention Study

The CALMER Lab at the Child Study Center at Virginia Tech is inviting families of adolescents with ADHD ages 11-16 years to participate in an online intervention study examining the utility of adding a smartphone app to help practice skills to the RELAX intervention.

RELAX seeks to equip adolescents with coping, communication, and conflict management skills, and help parents learn how to support their adolescents in using these skills. Families can earn a total of $200 for completing all parts of the study.

If you are interested in participating in this study, please complete this screener or email calmerlab@gmail.com.

ADHD & Eating Study

The CALMER Lab is excited to begin recruiting parents and their adolescents (ages 13 to 19 years) with ADHD for a study examining the frequency and contributing factors to different forms of disinhibited eating (overeating, loss of control, binge eating) among adolescents with ADHD.

Please see the flyer for more details or email calmerlab@gmail.com. You may also complete this screener to see if you are eligible to participate.

Past Research

Social-Emotional Development Study

While we are no longer recruiting, we are still finishing up our longitudinal social-emotional development study which examines the role of parent emotion regulation and parenting behaviors in children's social-emotional development from the preschool years through adolescence. This study involves 120 families of children ages 4-16 years.

Telehealth RELAX Intervention Pilot Study

The RELAX intervention targets emotion dysregulation and family conflict in families of adolescents with ADHD. RELAX consists of 8 weekly 90-minute groups for parents and adolescents. With a review session 1 month and 6 months after the groups are completed.We recently finished the telehealth RELAX intervention pilot study for middle schoolers with ADHD (n = 20). We have applied for additional funding to continue to provide this opportunity for families and hope to run more groups in winter and spring 2022.

Middle School Coping Program Study

During the COVID-19 pandemic we offered a free, online coping program for middle school students to help them cope with the stresses of the pandemic and the transition back to school.

Teleworking COVID-19 Impact Study

Working with Dr. Charles Calderwood and the Work Stress and Recovery Lab, this study sought to better understand how living through the COVID-19 pandemic may affect work, family, parent, and child functioning. Parents completed rating scales about spring 2020 stay-at-home orders and rating scales during fall 2020 after the transition back to hybrid schooling and in-person work for many parents. Additionally, they provided daily ratings on weekdays over a 2 week period so we could better assess daily interactions between parent, work, and child functioning.Parents will be compensated up to $75 for completing all parts of the study.

If you would like to learn more about the study, please contact us at childstudycenter@gmail.com or 540-231-8276.

See some of the CALMER Lab's recent publications from these and other studies here