Kirby Deater-Deckard

Kirby Deater-Deckard studies individual differences in child and adolescent development in Finland in collaboration with Finnish scholars, in parallel with collaborative studies they are conducting in nine other countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. This work is motivated by a two-part question: How does each of us become a unique individual, and in turn, what are the processes that promote or impede healthy individually distinct development? Deater-Deckard also strives to address a major gap in many disciplines – reliance on studying a handful of populations based on convenience. His specific objectives are 1) to address this two-part question using quantitative research on child, adolescent, and family development in Finland and 2) to connect those data with similar data from nine other countries. For Objective 1, he examines changes over time within each of many individuals using statistical analyses, to test competing models of individual differences in educational, mental health, and behavioral health outcomes in childhood and adolescence. For Objective 2, he initiates “data harmonization” work for studies in Finland and nine other countries, to a) analyze existing data and b) plan future data collection, to facilitate future integration of multinational studies.