Her research centers on the development of children's social competence, specifically the early social antecedents of children's competence and maladjustment exhibited in preschool and the early years of school, and the role that social cognition plays as a mediator. To this end, she has explored the relation of children's behavior in the peer group to early family interactions (parent–child and marriage), observed both naturalistically and in the laboratory. She also is interested in interventions for children at risk in early social settings and has pursued this through several funded projects, most recently in the Families & Schools for Health Project, a longitudinal study of the family and rural school contexts of child obesity. She worked with Drs. Gregory Pettit, Kenneth Dodge, and John Bates while at the University of Tennessee. share this page: