PROJECT ABSTRACT
Impairments in executive functioning (EF), cognitive processes that support self-regulation, disproportionately
impact children living in poverty and increase vulnerability for childhood disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs;
oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder), which trigger a cascade of mental health problems and
psychosocial difficulties across the lifespan. Poverty-related stress and maladaptive parenting styles have
been linked to alterations of neural and behavioral EF markers in children; despite this, no studies have studied
if parenting prevention programs can directly target childhood EF, and through improving EF, reduce disruptive
behaviors in at-risk children. This K23 Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award
application seeks to conduct a mechanistic randomized clinical trial to determine whether neural-behavioral
indices of childhood EF is an experimental therapeutic target that can be modified via caregiver participation in
the Chicago Parent Program (CPP; Aim 1). Consistent with the NIMH Research Domain Criteria framework,
childhood EF will be assessed across multiple levels of analysis (electroencephalogram [EEG], behavior,
survey). The project also seeks to evaluate whether increases in childhood neural-behavioral EF mediate the
effects of CPP in reducing disruptive behavior problems over a short-term follow-up (Aim 2). The project will
also explore whether increases in specific parenting practices (discipline, scaffolding), previously linked to
individual differences in EF, mediate the effects of CPP in predicting change in childhood neural-behavioral EF
(Aim 3). The sample will include 90 Medicaid eligible parent-child (ages 4-5 years old) dyads; and will employ a
novel recruitment approach where the target child will have moderate-to-severe EF delays at baseline but does
not meet diagnostic criteria for a DBD. Consistent with the candidate's translational clinical scientist career
goals, the candidate seeks crucial training in: community-based research and dissemination and
implementation science, advanced EEG methods to evaluate neural-behavioral EF targets of preventive
interventions, and statistical skills to design and evaluate clinical trials. Training will occur in an outstanding
interdisciplinary environment at the University of Illinois at Chicago, in the Department of Psychiatry and
leverage the department's established strengths in community mental health services research, dissemination
and implementation science, and affective neuroscience. Mentors Drs. Atkins, Fitzgerald and Bhaumik and
consultants Drs. Klumpp, Wakschlag, Gross, and Handley have expertise in the training areas and extensive
histories of early career mentorship, and will work together to ensure the candidate's successful transition to
research independence. Study findings will support an R01 application to validate the results on a larger scale
and launch the candidate's academic career as a preventive intervention scientist. Findings have significant
potential to identify whether CPP, a cost-efficient parenting intervention, modifies neural-behavioral EF indices
in urban poor children, a theorized etiological risk mechanism of DBDs, and therefore prevent DBDs.