Biosketch
Dr. Connell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology.
Research Interests
Dr. Connell's areas of interest and specialization include the etiology of depression and anxiety disorders across childhood and adolescence, and on translating such developmental models into prevention and intervention programs for at-risk youth. Although my central interests focus on the development and prevention of internalizing disorders in youth, I am also interested in the development and treatment of conduct problems and substance use in youth (particularly as these problems often co-occur with depression), and more broadly on the development and application of quantitative methods for developmental research (including latent growth and growth mixture modeling techniques).
Dr. Connell has been pursuing research on a family-focused intervention for depression in youth. This intervention marks an extension of the Adolescent Transitions Program (ATP; Dishion & Kavanagh, 2003), which was originally developed to target parenting practices related to conduct problems in youth, and is currently listed as a “Best Practices” intervention by NIDA. This intervention approach has not yet been extended to specifically target the risk for depression in youth, although it holds great promise for depression, as prior studies have highlighted the challenge of successfully engaging the parents of depressed youth in treatment. The two goals of my fellowship are 1) to examine processes of family and child engagement with treatment and change in response to intervention efforts using three existing prevention trial datasets examining the delivery of the current Adolescent Transitions Program in the public school system, and 2) to conduct a pilot-test of depression-focused adaptation of the ATP for families of youth experiencing problems with depression. Ultimately, a family-oriented intervention framework based on motivational interviewing principles may lead to improved treatment outcomes for depressed children and adolescents. The resulting pilot data will be used to pursue funding for a larger prevention trial within the school system.
Central to a developmental psychopathology framework, I believe that basic and applied research should be mutually informative. Along these lines, I have been pursuing several lines of research on developmental processes related to trajectories of depression and co-occurring problems across adolescence. First, I am pursuing work with several large longitudinal datasets examining heterogeneity in developmental trajectories of internalizing and externalizing symptoms across early childhood and adolescence. The goals of this work are to use Latent Growth Mixture Modeling techniques to identify developmental pathways associated with elevated risk for problem outcomes across early development (e.g. depression or conduct disorder diagnoses, or arrests), and to delineate child, family, and peer predictors that appear to place youth on these high-risk developmental trajectories. Second, I am interested in family and peer processes related to growth in depression during adolescence. As an example of this work, I recently published a paper in Development and Psychopathology using short-term longitudinal data to examine family conflict and peer deviance as predictors of time-specific growth in depression symptoms over the course of several monthly symptom reports. Third, along with Tom Dishion, I have been pursuing work on children’s self-regulatory abilities as a protective factor for the emergence of depression, conduct problems, and substance use in late adolescence. Developmental studies should help refine prevention and intervention efforts by highlighting specific child, family, and peer processes related to the elevated risk for the development of depression and related problems, which may be targets for future intervention studies.
Dr. Connell can be reached via phone (216-368-2686), email, or through the Department of Psychology, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Avenue , Cleveland , OH 44106-7123 .
Courses Taught
- PSCL 344 - Developmental Psychopathology
- PSCL 412 - Measurement of Behavior
- PSCL 444 - Developmental Psychopathology
- PSCL 536 - Child and Family Intervention
Recent, Representative Publications
Connell, A., Dishion, T., Yasui, M., & Kavanagh, K. (in press). An adaptive approach to family intervention: Linking engagement in family-centered intervention to reductions in adolescent problem behavior. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.
Gardner, T., Dishion, T., & Connell, A. (in press). Adolescent self-regulation as resilience: Resistance to antisocial behavior within the deviant peer context. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.
Dishion, T. J., & Connell, A. (2006). Adolescents’ resilience as a self-regulatory process: Promising themes for linking intervention with developmental science. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1094, 125–138.
Dishion, T., & Connell, A. (in press). An ecological approach to family intervention to prevent adolescent drug use: Linking parent engagement to long-term reductions of tobacco, alcohol and marijuana use. To Appear: Heinrichs, N., Hahlweg, K. & Doepfner, M. (Eds.). Strengthening families: Different evidence-based approaches to support child mental health. Muenster.Psychotherapie Verlag.
Connell, A., & Frye, A. (2006). Progress and challenges in growth mixture modeling. Infant & Child Development, 15, 639-642.
Connell, A., & Frye, A. (2006). Growth mixture modeling in developmental psychology: Overview and demonstration of examining heterogeneity in developmental trajectories of antisocial behavior across adolescence. Infant & Child Development, 15, 609-621.
Connell, A., Dishion, T., & Deater–Deckard, K. (2006). Variable- and person-centered approaches to the analysis of early adolescent substance use: Linking peer, family, and intervention effects with developmental trajectories. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly (Special issue on variable and person-centered analysis), 52, 421 – 448.
Connell, A., Dishion, T. (2006). The contribution of peers to monthly variation in adolescent depressed mood: A short-term longitudinal study with time-varying predictors. Development & Psychopathology, 18, 139 – 154.
McClure, E., Connell, A. M., Zucker, M., Griffith, J., & Kaslow, N. (2004). What treatments work for depressed youth. In E. Hibbs & P. Jensen (Eds.), Psychosocial treatments for child and adolescent disorders: Empirically based strategies for clinical practice (2nd ed.). Washington DC: American Psychological Association.
Kaslow, N., McClure, E., & Connell, A. (2002). Treatment of depression in children and adolescents. In I. Gotlib and C. Hammen (Eds.), Handbook of depression and its treatment (pp. 441–464). New York: Guilford.
Connell, A., & Goodman, S. (2002). The association between child internalizing and externalizing behavior problems and psychopathology in mothers versus fathers: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 746-773.
Selected Presentations
Connell, A., & Dishion, T. (2007, April). Trajectories of coping behaviors across adolescence: Family intervention effects and diagnostic outcomes. Poster to be presented at the Biennial Conference for the Society for Research on Child Development, Boston, MA.
Connell, A., & Dishion, T. (2006, May). Family engagement with an adaptive intervention for adolescent problem behavior: Predictors of treatment compliance and intervention effects. Paper presented at the Society for Prevention Research, San Antonio, TX.
Connell, A., & Dishion, T. (2006, April). An adaptive approach to family intervention in the public middle schools: Engagement and long-term effects on substance use. Poster presented at the National Institute on Drug Abuse Research Training Institute, Bethesda, MD.
Connell, A., & Dishion, T (2006, March). Latent Growth Mixture Modeling in family research: Family dynamics and depressive symptom trajectories across adolescence. Paper presented at the Biennial Conference for the Society for Research on Adolescence, San Francisco, CA.
Connell, A. (2005, April). Heterogeneity in trajectories of internalizing problems in youth: Predictors of development and diagnoses in late adolescence. Paper presented at the Biennial Conference for the Society for Research on Child Development, Atlanta, GA.
Connell, A., & Dishion, T. (2005, April). Trajectories of substance use development in early adolescence: Examining peer and family risk factors and intervention effects. Poster presented at the Biennial Conference for the Society for Research on Child Development, Atlanta, GA.
Connell, A., & Dishion, T. J. (2004, July). Family and peer predictors of monthly variation in early adolescent depressive symptoms: Conditional growth models with time-varying predictors. Presented at the Biennial Conference for the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development, Ghent, Belgium.
Connell, A., & Goodman, S. (2004, July). Marital conflict and child adjustment problems: Links with children’s social information processing and regulation of arousal. Presented at the Biennial Conference for the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development, Ghent, Belgium.
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