Clancy Blair, Ph.D.

Ph.D., University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1996

Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Studies

Contact Information

S-110 Henderson Building
Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA 16802

(814) 863-6423

Research

My research concerns the developmental antecedents of school readiness and risk for early school failure among children from low-income homes. I am particularly interested in the ways in which children acquire the self-regulatory skills and abilities that enable them to become diligent students in the classroom and worthy playmates in the schoolyard. My interest in children's social and cognitive readiness to learn in school has led me to the study of the developmental interface between cognition and emotion in young children. Specifically, I am interested in the ways in which emotionality and biologically based emotion related processes in infancy and early childhood either support or disrupt the development of motivation and metacognitive thinking skills that support learning. To this end I am measuring several aspects children's self-regulation ability, including physiological, cognitive, and temperamental aspects of regulation, and relating them to a variety of measures of social and academic adaptation to early schooling.

My interest in research on children's school readiness stems from my desire to design, implement, and evaluate preventive intervention programs to promote school readiness. By understanding the developmental antecedents of social and cognitive readiness to learn, I hope to create effective prevention curricula that can assist children in the development of the types of self-regulation skills that can promote a successful transition to school and help establish patterns of lifelong learning and success. My aim in doing so is to develop a model of school readiness and the development of self-regulation that links the biological and the social in a comprehensive framework for understanding developmental trajectories toward competence in early childhood.

Education

McGill University, Montreal, P.Q., Canada, B.A., 1984, History
University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1993, M.A., Developmental Psychology
University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1996, Ph.D., Developmental Psychology
University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1996, M.P.H., Maternal and Child Health

Professional Experience

2004- Present: Associate Professor, Department of Human Development and Family Studies
1998-2004: Assistant Professor, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
1996-1998: Postdoctoral trainee, Department of Psychology, University of Miami

Selected Publications

Blair, C. Patrick, M., & Maggs, J. (in press).Executive function, approach sensitivity, and emotional decision-making as influences on risk behaviors in young adults. Journal of Child and Experimental Neuropsychology.
Femia, E. E., Zarit, S. H., Blair, C., Jarrott, S. E., & Bruno, K. (in press). Impact of intergenerational programming on child outcomes. Early Childhood Research Quarterly.
Granger, D. A., Blair, D., Willoughby, M. Kivlighan, K. T., Hibel, L. C., & the Family Life Project Investigators (in press). Measuring salivary biomarkers of stress in early childhood: Relation of smoking and environmental tobacco exposure to cortisol and alpha-amylase, Developmental Psychobiology.
Mills-Koonce, R., Propper, C., Gariepy, J-L., Blair, C., Garrett-Peters, P., & Cox, M. (in press). Bi-directional genetic and enfironmental influences on mother and child behavior: The family systems as the unit of analysis. Development and Psychopathology.
Stern, E., Peterson, B.S., & Blair, C. (in press). Inhibitory deficits in Tourette's syndrome. Developmental Psychobiology.
Blair, C. & Razza, R.P. (2007). Relating effortful control, executive function, and false-belief understanding to emerging math and literacy ability in kindergarten. Child Development, 78, 647-663.
Willoughby, M., Vandergrift, N., Blair, C. & Granger, D. (2007). A structural equation modeling approach for the analysis of data collected using pre-post-post designs. Structural Equation Modeling, 14, 125-145.
Blair, C. (2006). How similar are fluid cognition and general intelligence? A developmental neuroscience perspective on fluid cognition as an aspect of human cognitive ability. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 29, 109-125.
Blair, C. (2006). Toward a revised theory of general intelligence: Further examination of fluid cognitive abilities as unique aspects of human cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 29, 145-160.
Blair, C., Granger, D., Willoughby, M., Kivlighan, K., & and the Family Life Project Investigators (2006). Maternal sensitivity is related to hypothalmic-pituitary-adrenal axis stress reactivity and regulation in response to emotion challenge in 6-month-old infants. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1094, 263-267.
Blair, C., & Patrick, M. (2006). Fluid cognitive ability: A neglected aspect of cognition in research on mental retardation. International Review of Research on Mental Retardation, 32, 131-158.
Granger, D., Kivlighan, K., Blair, C., El-Sheikh, M., Mize, J., Lisonbee, J., Buckhalt, J. Stroud, L., Handwerger, K., & Schwartz, E. (2006) Integrating the measurement of salivary alpha- amylase into studies of child health, development, and social relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 23, 267-290.
Hibel, L. Granger, D., Kivlighan, K., Blair C., and the Family Life Project Investigators (2006). Individual differences in salivary cortisol: Relation to common over-the-counter and prescription medications in infants and their mothers. Hormones and Behavior, 50, 293-300.
Plessen, K., Bansal, R., Zhu, H., Whiteman, R., Amat, J., Quackenbush, G., Martin, L., Durkin, K., Blair, C., Royal, J., Hugdahl, K., & Peterson, B.S. (2006). Hippocampus and amygdala morphology in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry, 63, 795-807.
Vernon-Feagans, L. & Blair, C. (2006). The measurement of school readiness: Introduction to the special issue. Early Education and Development, 17, 1-5.
Blair, C., Gamson, D., Thorne, S., & Baker, D. (2005). Rising mean IQ: Changing cognitive demand of mathematics education for young children, population exposure to formal schooling, and the neurobiology of the prefrontal cortex. Intelligence, 33, 93-106.
Blair, C., Granger, D., & Razza, R.P. (2005). Cortisol reactivity is positively related to executive function in preschool children attending Head Start. Child Development, 76, 554-567.
Blair, C., Zelazo, P.D., & Greenberg, M.T. (2005). The measurement of executive function in young children. Developmental Neuropsychology, 28, 561-571.
Blair, C. (2004). Intelligence, learning disability, and fluid cognitive functions of the prefrontal cortex: A developmental neuroscience approach. Learning Disabilities: A Contemporary Journal, 2, 22-29.
Blair, C., Peters, R., & Granger, D. (2004). Physiological and neuropsychological correlates of approach/withdrawal behavior in preschool: Further examination of the BIS/BAS scales for young children. Developmental Psychobiology, 45, 113-124.
Fletcher, K., Blair, C., Bolger, K., & Scott, M. (2004). Specific patterns of cognitive abilities in young children with mild mental retardation. Education and Training in Developmental Disabilities, 39, 270-278.Blair, C. (2003). School transition/school readiness: An outcome of early childhood. In Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development. Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development Web site http://www.excellence-earlychildhood.ca
Gottlieb, G. & Blair, C. (2004). How early experience matters in intellectual development in the case of poverty. Prevention Science, 5, 245-252.
Riggs, N., Blair, C., & Greenberg, M. (2004).Concurrent and 2-year longitudinal relations between executive function and the behavior of 1st and 2nd grade children. Child Neuropsychology, 9, 267-276.Blair, C. (2003). Behavioral inhibition and behavioral activation in young children: Relations with self-regulation and adaptation to preschool in children attending Head Start. Developmental Psychobiology, 42, 301-311.
Blair, C. & Peters, R. (2003). Physiological and neurocognitive correlates of adaptive behavior in preschool among children in Head Start. Developmental Neuropsychology, 24, 479-497.
Blair, C., Peters, & Lawrence, F. (2003). Family dynamics and child outcomes in early intervention: The role of developmental theory in the specification of effects. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 18, 447-467.
Lawrence, F. & Blair, C. (2003). Factorial invariance in preventive intervention: Modeling the development of intelligence in low birth weight, preterm infants. Prevention Science, 4, 249-261.
Peters, R., & Blair, C. (2003). False-belief understanding in children living in poverty. Early Education and Development, 14, 425-439.
Blair, C. (2002). School readiness as propensity for engagement: Integrating cognition and emotion in a neurobiological conceptualization of child functioning at school entry. American Psychologist, 57, 111-127.
Blair, C. & Scott, K.G. (2002). Proportion of learning disabilities placements associated with low socioeconomic status: Evidence for a gradient? The Journal of Special Education, 36, 14-22.
Blair, C. (2002). Early intervention for low birth weight, preterm infants: The role of negative emotionality in the specification of effects. Development and Psychopathology, 14, 311-332.
Blair, C. & Wahlsten, D. (2002). Why early intervention works: A reply to Baumeister and Bacharach. Intelligence, 30, 129-140.
Blair, C. (2001). The early identification of risk for grade retention among African American children at risk for school difficulty. Applied Developmental Science, 5, 36-50.
Blair, C., Greenberg, M., & Crnic, K. (2001). Age related increases in motivation in children with mild mental retardation and MA- and CA-matched controls. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 106, 511-524.
Blair, C. (1999). Science, policy, and early intervention. Intelligence, 27, 93-110.

Ramey, C. T., Campbell, F. A., & Blair, C. (1998). The Abecedarian Project: Long-term effectiveness of educational day care beginning at birth. In J. Crane (Ed.), Social programs that work. (pp. 163-183). New York: Russell Sage.
Blair, C., & Ramey, C. T. (1997). Early intervention for low birth weight infants and the path to second generation research. In M. J. Guralnick (Ed.), The effectiveness of early intervention (pp. 77-97). Baltimore, MD: Brookes.
Blair, C., & Ramey, C. T. (1996). Nature versus nurture, again?: Flogging a dead horse. In D. Detterman (Ed.), Current topics in human intelligence (pp. 229-234). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Ramey, C. T., & Blair, C. (1996). Intellectual development and the role of early experience. In D. Detterman (Ed.), Current topics in human intelligence (pp. 59-68). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Susman-Stillman, A., Brown, J., Adam, E., Blair, C., Gaines, R., Gordon, R. A., White, A. M., & Wynn, S. (1996). Building research and policy connections: Training and career opportunities for developmental scientists. Social Policy Report: Society for Research in Child Development, 10(4).
Blair, C., Ramey, C. T., & Hardin, J. M. (1995). Early intervention for low birth weight, premature infants: Participation and intellectual development. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 99, 542-554.
Ramey, C. T., Ramey, S. L., Gaines, K. R., & Blair, C. (1995). Two-generation early intervention programs: A child development perspective. In S. Smith (Ed.) Advances in applied developmental psychology: Vol. 9. Two generation programs for families in poverty: A new intervention strategy (pp. 199-228). Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.