Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center

Ronald Seifer, PhD

Research director at Bradley Hospital

Associate professor at theWarren Alpert Medical School of Brown University

Research Interests

Ronald Seifer, PhD, has research interests in the area of developmental psychopathology. He has ongoing studies on children at risk for psychopathology (owing to parental mental illness) and children exposed to substances of abuse during the prenatal period. Processes studied include children's emotions, relationship formation, temperament, and family interaction. The focus of this work is on the early years of life.

Selected Research Projects

Social-emotional competence in children at risk for psychopathology because of parental illness.
Currently examining 10-year outcomes in cohort studied since 1 year of age.

Parent-child goodness of fit in the context of maternal psychopathology and contextual risk factors.
Examines social emotional competence through 2-1/2 years of age.

Outcomes of children exposed to cocaine and other substances in utero.
Examines developmental outcomes through 7 years of age.

Emotion Processing and Social Competence in Head Start Children

Selected Publications

Dickstein, S., Seifer, R., Hayden, L., Schiller, M., Sameroff, A.J., Keitner, G., Miller, I., Rasmussen, S., Matzko, M., & Dodge-Magee, K. (1998). Levels of family assessment II: Impact of maternal psychopathology on family functioning. Journal of Family Psychology, 12, 23-40.

Hayden, L., Dickstein, S., Schiller, M., Seifer, R., Sameroff, A.J., Keitner, G., Miller, I., Rasmussen, S. (1998). Levels of family assessment I: Family, marital, and parent-child interaction. Journal of Family Psychology, 12, 7-22.

Lester, B., Lagasse, L., & Seifer, R. (1998). Prenatal cocaine exposure: The meaning of subtle effects. Science, 282, 633-634.

Seifer, R. (in press). Conceptual and methodological basis for understanding development and risk in infants. In P. S. Zeskind & L. Singer (Eds.), Biobehavioral assessment of the newborn and young infant: Developmental models and implications for the infant at risk. New York: Guilford.

Seifer, R. (2001). Socioeconomic status, multiple risks, and development of intelligence. In R. J. Sternberg & E. L. Grigorenko (Eds.), Environmental effects on cognitive abilities (pp. 59-82). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Seifer, R. (2000). Temperament and goodness of fit: Implications for developmental psychopathology. In A. J. Sameroff, M. Lewis & S. Miller (Eds.), Handbook of developmental psychopathology (pp. 257-276). New York: Plenum.

Seifer, R., & Dickstein, S. (2000). Parental mental illness and infant development. In C. Zeanah (Ed.), Handbook of infant mental health (2nd Ed.; pp. 145-160). New York: Guilford.

Seifer, R., Sameroff, A.J., Dickstein, S., Keitner, G., Miller, I., Rasmussen, S. & Hayden, L.C., (1996). Parental Psychopathology, Multiple Contextual Risks, and One-Year Outcomes in Children. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 25, 423-435.

Seifer, R., & Schiller, M. (1995). The role of parenting sensitivity, infant temperament, and dyadic interaction in attachment theory and assessment. In E. Waters, B. E. Vaughn, G. Posada, & K. Kondo-Ikemura (Eds.), Caregiving, cultural, and cognitive perspectives on secure-base behavior and working models: New growing points of attachment theory and research. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 60, (Serial number 244, pp. 146-174).

Seifer, R., Schiller, M., Sameroff, A.J., Resnick, S., & Riordan, K. (1996). Attachment, maternal sensitivity, and temperament during the first year of life. Developmental Psychology, 32, 12-25.

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