Susan Berger

My research and teaching interests have been focused on how emerging parent-infant relationships can be supported by pediatricians and on the impact that the quality of those relationships can have on children’s healthy adaptation and on the practice of primary care pediatrics. In the initial phase of my research, I developed and validated a research protocol for observing and understanding meaningful patterns of interaction that occur between parents and infants during well child visits. Next, I modified the observational system for clinical use, integrated it into Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics training for pediatric residents and studied its influence on recognition, guidance and documentation in well child care visits. My interests currently revolve around exploring mechanisms and pathways by which the parent-child relationship may contribute to early childhood obesity. I hope this research will lead to identifying families with children at-risk for early obesity who might benefit from early intervention targeting parent-child interactions, parental sensitivity to infant cues and, more broadly, parent-child relationships in lieu of, or in addition to, traditional interventions for obesity. A second line of current research examines parental perceptions and actions around early infant regulation. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship of feeding methods, parenting practices, parent and infant characteristics on the development of infant regulation over the first 18 months.

Supporting positive parenting in primary care pediatric settings to promote optimal developmental and behavioral adaptation of young children.