Research

Research and publications

Before devoting myself full time to clinical practice, I spent more than a decade conducting research on how children’s temperament, family life, and stress physiology shape mental health. That work continues to inform how I tailor care to each person today.

  • Child anxiety
  • Parenting
  • Temperament
  • Stress physiology
  • Treatment response
  • Family adversity

Peer-reviewed publications

  1. Kiff, C. J., Ernestus, S., Gonzalez, A., Kendall, P. C., Albano, A. M., Compton, S. N., Birmaher, B., Ginsburg, G. S., Rynn, M., Walkup, J. T., McCracken, J., & Piacentini, J. C. (2018). The interplay of familial and individual risk in predicting clinical improvements in pediatric anxiety disorders. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology.
  2. Thompson, S. F., Zalewski, M., Kiff, C. J., & Lengua, L. J. (2018). A state-trait model of cortisol in early childhood: Contextual and parental predictors of stable and time-varying effects. Hormones and Behavior, 98, 198-209.
  3. Ruberry, E., Lengua, L. J., Klein, M., Kiff, C. J., & Thompson, S. F. (in press). Parenting as a moderator for the effects of cumulative risk on children’s social-emotional adjustment and academic readiness. Infant and Child Development.
  4. Klein, M. R., Lengua, L. J., Thompson, S. F., Moran, L., Ruberry, E., Kiff, C. J., & Zalewski, M. (2016). Bidirectional relations between temperament and parenting predicting preschool-age children’s adjustment. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology.
  5. Lester, P., Aralis, H., Sinclair, M., Kiff, C. J., Lee, K. H., Mustillo, S., & Wadsworth, S. M. (2016). The impact of deployment on parental, family and child adjustment in military families. Child Psychiatry and Human Development. doi:10.1007/s10578-016-0624-9
  6. Moran, L., Lengua, L. J., Zalewski, M., Ruberry, E., Klein, M., Thompson, S., & Kiff, C. J. (2016). Variable- and person-centered approaches to examining temperament vulnerability and resilience to the effects of contextual risk. Journal of Research in Personality. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2016.03.003
  7. Adrian, M., Kiff, C. J., Glazner, C., Kohen, R., Tracy, J. H., Zhou, C., McCauley, E., & VanderStoep, A. (2015). Examining gene-environment interactions in comorbid depressive and disruptive behavior disorders using a Bayesian approach. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 68, 125-133.
  8. Mogil, C., Hajal, N., Garcia, E., Kiff, C. J., Paley, B., Milburn, N., & Lester, P. (2015). FOCUS for Early Childhood: A virtual home visiting program for military families with young children. Contemporary Family Therapy.
  9. Zalewski, M., Lengua, L. J., Thompson, S. F., & Kiff, C. J. (2015). Income, cumulative risk and longitudinal profiles of dysregulated HPA-axis responding in preschool-age children. Development and Psychopathology. doi:10.1017/S0954579415000474
  10. Gonzalez, A., Peris, T., Vreeland, A., Kiff, C. J., Kendall, P. C., Compton, S. N., Albano, A., Birmaher, B., Ginsburg, G. S., Keeton, C. P., March, J., McCracken, J., Rynn, M., Sherrill, J., Walkup, J. T., & Piacentini, J. (2014). Parental anxiety as a predictor of medication and CBT response for anxious youth. Child Psychiatry and Human Development.
  11. Lengua, L. J., Kiff, C. J., Moran, L., Zalewski, M., Thompson, S. F., Cortes, R., & Ruberry, E. (2014). Parenting mediates the effects of income and cumulative risk on the development of effortful control. Social Development, 1-19.
  12. Lengua, L. J., Moran, L., Zalewski, M., Cortes, R., Ruberry, E., Kiff, C. J., & Thompson, S. F. (2014). Relations of growth in effortful control to income, cumulative risk and adjustment in preschool-age children. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.
  13. Kiff, C. J., Cortes, R., Lengua, L. J., Kosterman, R., Hawkins, J. D., & Mason, W. A. (2012). Effects of timing of adversity on adolescent and young adult adjustment. Journal of Research on Adolescence.
  14. Zalewski, M., Lengua, L. J., Kiff, C. J., & Fisher, P. A. (2012). Understanding the relation of low income to HPA-axis functioning in preschool children: Cumulative family adversity and parenting as pathways to disruptions in cortisol. Child Psychiatry and Human Development.
  15. Kiff, C. J., Lengua, L. J., & Bush, N. R. (2011). Temperament variation in sensitivity to parenting: Predicting changes in depression and anxiety. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 39, 1199-1212. doi:10.1007/s10802-011-9539-x
  16. Kiff, C. J., Lengua, L. J., & Zalewski, M. (2011). Nature and nurturing: Parenting in the context of child temperament. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 14, 251-301. doi:10.1007/s10567-011-0093-4
  17. Wood, J. J., Kiff, C. J., Jacobs, J., Ifekwunigwe, M., & Piacentini, J. C. (2007). Dependency on elementary school caregivers: The role of parental intrusiveness and children’s separation anxiety. Psychology in the Schools, 44, 823-837.

Book chapters

  1. Thompson, S. F., Kiff, C. J., & McLaughlin, K. A. (2018). The neurobiology of stress and adversity in infancy. In Handbook of Infant Mental Health (4th ed.).
  2. Flaherty, B., & Kiff, C. J. (2012). Latent class and latent profile models (pp. 391-404). In H. Cooper, P. M. Camic, D. L. Long, A. T. Panter, D. Rindskopf, & K. J. Sher (Eds.), Handbook of Research Methods in Psychology, Vol. 3: Data Analysis and Research Publication. American Psychological Association.
  3. Lengua, L. J., & Kiff, C. J. (2009). Temperament and depression. In R. E. Ingram (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Depression. Springer.

Writing for parents and the public

  1. Kiff, C. J. (2020, March). A guide to parent self-care during the COVID-19 pandemic. OUPblog, Oxford University Press.
  2. Kiff, C. J. (2019, February 15). “My tummy hurts again”: Decoding children’s school avoidance. InfoAboutKids.

Research that shapes my care

If this approach resonates with you, I would be glad to talk about how we might work together.

Schedule a consultation Visit the blog