The Research arm of the Parent-Child Research Clinic studies how individuals develop antisocial and aggressive behaviour, and callous and psychopathic traits. We are particularly interested in the role of family factors and parenting, and child factors including how children process emotions and respond to stressors. Learn more about our research into understanding how antisocial-aggressive and callous-psychopathic traits develop here.

A second goal of our research is to develop better ways of measuring callous-unemotional traits and related constructs such as empathy and aggression. This will help researchers and clinicians to better identify populations for research studies and to deliver evidence-based intervention.

Our third research goal is to improve outcomes for children with antisocial-aggressive and callous-psychopathic traits by developing targeted treatments using a personalised medicine approach. For the past several years we have been researching an adaptation of an evidence-based program called Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, for young children with conduct problems and limited prosocial emotions (i.e., low levels of empathy/remorse, uncaring attitudes, shallow emotional experience). This adaptation is called Parent-Child Interaction Therapy: Callous-Unemotional Adaptation (PCIT-CU).

A final focus of our research is on reducing barriers to accessing evidence-based treatments for families of young children with disruptive behaviour disorders (oppositional-defiant disorder; conduct disorder; attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder). We have tested internet-delivered versions of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (iPCIT) and PCIT-CU (iPCIT-CU), and a school-delivered adaptation of PCIT and PCIT-CU (School PCIT/-CU) involving teachers and learning support staff participating in intervention with their students with disruptive behaviour disorders and their families.

The Parent-Child Research Clinic and its research arm are directed by Professor Eva Kimonis in the UNSW School of Psychology.

To learn more about accessing our clinical services for children with disruptive behaviour problems visit the UNSW Parent-Child Research Clinic webpage.