Stephanie M. Carlson

Stephanie M. Carlson is an American developmental psychologist whose research has contributed to scientific understanding of the development of children's executive function skills, including psychometrics and the key roles of imagination and distancing. Carlson is Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota, and Co-founder of Reflection Sciences, Inc.

Stephanie M. Carlson
Born(1969-11-08)November 8, 1969
Education
Scientific career
Institutions

Professor Carlson is a graduate of Bucknell University (summa cum laude), and obtained her Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Oregon in 1997, where she studied with Marjorie Taylor, Lou Moses, Dare Baldwin, Mary Rothbart, and Michael Posner. From 1998 to 2007, she was Assistant and then Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington. In 2007, she moved to the Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, where she co-directs (with Philip David Zelazo) the Developmental Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory. She was promoted to Professor in 2013, and named Distinguished McKnight University Professor in 2017.

In 2014, Carlson and Zelazo co-founded a University-based start-up company, Reflection Sciences, Inc., to disseminate information about executive function skills and provide tools for assessing those skills and promoting their healthy development.

Research themes

Measurement of executive function in early childhood

Professor Carlson has made major contributions to the assessment of executive function skills in very young children,[1][2] including the Less is More task,[3] and the creation of the Minnesota Executive Function Scale™ (MEFS), a tablet-based direct assessment that is standardized, reliable, validated, normed, and suitable for children ages 2 years and up.[4] This work stemmed from her influential research investigating the relation between executive function and theory of mind in young children.[5]

Early experience and the development of executive function skills

Professor Carlson's research has examined how variations in early experiences relate to later differences in the development of executive function skills. Children with better executive function skills (independent of intelligence) generally have higher quality sleep in infancy,[6][7] receive more autonomy-supportive parenting from both mothers and fathers,[6][8][9] receive non-punitive discipline,[10] and are raised bilingual.[11] In contrast, children with worse executive function skills are more likely to have a history of deprived care, such as experience in orphanages,[12][13] and prenatal exposure to alcohol.[14]

The Batman effect

Carlson's work has shown how imagination and symbolization contribute to children's developing decision-making skills.[3] Together with former students Rachel White and Emily Prager, and colleagues Angela Duckworth and Ethan Kross, Carlson has shown that asking children to role-play as if they were an exemplary character (e.g., Batman), which creates psychological distance, increases kindergarten children's executive function scores by the equivalent of 1 year of development,[15] and helps them to resist a tempting video game and persist longer at tasks.[16]

Selected honors

Carlson is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the American Psychological Association (Division 7, Developmental), where she received the Dissertation Research Award (1995), and past Vice President of the Jean Piaget Society. She is a Scientific Advisor to Transforming Education, the Minnesota Children's Museum, Playworks.org, Understood.org, and Sesame Workshop (e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PnbKL3wuH4).

Selected works

References
  1. Carlson, Stephanie M. (October 2005). "Developmentally Sensitive Measures of Executive Function in Preschool Children". Developmental Neuropsychology. 28 (2): 595–616. doi:10.1207/s15326942dn2802_3. PMID 16144429. S2CID 19068613.
  2. Carlson, S. M., Faja, S., & Beck, D. M. (2015). Incorporating early development into measurement approaches: The need for a continuum of measures across development. In J. A. Griffin, P. McCardle, & L. S. Freund (Eds.), Executive function in preschool age children: Integrating measurement, neurodevelopment, and translational research (pp. 45–64). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
  3. Carlson, S. M.; Davis, A. C.; Leach, J. G. (1 August 2005). "Less Is More: Executive Function and Symbolic Representation in Preschool Children". Psychological Science. 16 (8): 609–616. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01583.x. PMID 16102063. S2CID 23148937.
  4. Carlson, S. M., & Zelazo, P. D. (2014). Minnesota Executive Function Scale: Test manual. Reflection Sciences, Inc.: St. Paul, MN.
  5. Carlson, Stephanie M.; Moses, Louis J. (August 2001). "Individual Differences in Inhibitory Control and Children's Theory of Mind". Child Development. 72 (4): 1032–1053. doi:10.1111/1467-8624.00333. PMID 11480933.
  6. Bernier, Annie; Carlson, Stephanie M.; Bordeleau, Stéphanie; Carrier, Julie (November 2010). "Relations Between Physiological and Cognitive Regulatory Systems: Infant Sleep Regulation and Subsequent Executive Functioning". Child Development. 81 (6): 1739–1752. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01507.x. PMID 21077861.
  7. Bernier, Annie; Beauchamp, Miriam H.; Bouvette-Turcot, Andrée-Anne; Carlson, Stephanie M.; Carrier, Julie (September 2013). "Sleep and Cognition in Preschool Years: Specific Links to Executive Functioning". Child Development. 84 (5): 1542–1553. doi:10.1111/cdev.12063. PMID 23432661.
  8. Bernier, Annie; Carlson, Stephanie M.; Deschênes, Marie; Matte-Gagné, Célia (January 2012). "Social factors in the development of early executive functioning: a closer look at the caregiving environment". Developmental Science. 15 (1): 12–24. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2011.01093.x. PMID 22251288.
  9. Meuwissen, Alyssa S.; Carlson, Stephanie M. (December 2015). "Fathers matter: The role of father parenting in preschoolers' executive function development". Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 140: 1–15. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2015.06.010. PMC 4558369. PMID 26209884.
  10. Talwar, Victoria; Carlson, Stephanie M.; Lee, Kang (November 2011). "Effects of a Punitive Environment on Children's Executive Functioning: A Natural Experiment". Social Development. 20 (4): 805–824. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9507.2011.00617.x.
  11. Carlson, Stephanie M.; Meltzoff, Andrew N. (March 2008). "Bilingual experience and executive functioning in young children". Developmental Science. 11 (2): 282–298. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00675.x. PMC 3647884. PMID 18333982.
  12. Doom, Jenalee R.; Gunnar, Megan R.; Georgieff, Michael K.; Kroupina, Maria G.; Frenn, Kristin; Fuglestad, Anita J.; Carlson, Stephanie M. (February 2014). "Beyond Stimulus Deprivation: Iron Deficiency and Cognitive Deficits in Postinstitutionalized Children". Child Development. 85 (5): 1805–12. doi:10.1111/cdev.12231. PMC 4156571. PMID 24597672.
  13. Hostinar, C. E.; Stellern, S. A.; Schaefer, C.; Carlson, S. M.; Gunnar, M. R. (9 October 2012). "Associations between early life adversity and executive function in children adopted internationally from orphanages". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 109 (Supplement_2): 17208–17212. doi:10.1073/pnas.1121246109. PMC 3477377. PMID 23047689.
  14. Fuglestad, Anita J.; Whitley, Marisa L.; Carlson, Stephanie M.; Boys, Christopher J.; Eckerle, Judith K.; Fink, Birgit A.; Wozniak, Jeffrey R. (11 July 2014). "Executive functioning deficits in preschool children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders". Child Neuropsychology. 21 (6): 716–731. doi:10.1080/09297049.2014.933792. PMC 4289660. PMID 25011516.
  15. White, Rachel E.; Carlson, Stephanie M. (May 2016). "What would Batman do? Self-distancing improves executive function in young children". Developmental Science. 19 (3): 419–426. doi:10.1111/desc.12314. PMID 25997842.
  16. White, Rachel E.; Prager, Emily O.; Schaefer, Catherine; Kross, Ethan; Duckworth, Angela L.; Carlson, Stephanie M. (September 2017). "The "Batman Effect": Improving Perseverance in Young Children". Child Development. 88 (5): 1563–1571. doi:10.1111/cdev.12695. PMID 27982409.
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