Psychology Seminar | Virtual Reality in the Assessment, Understanding and Treatment of Children's Mental Health
| Event | Virtual Reality in the Assessment, Understanding and Treatment of Children's Mental Health |
|---|---|
| Speaker | Dr Keri Ka-Yee Wong Affiliated Lecturer, University of Cambridge |
| Date | 6 February 2018, Tuesday |
| Venue | HSS Meeting Room 4 (HSS-04-71) |
| Time | 11:45am to 12:45pm |
All are welcome to attend the seminar.
Abstract
As parents and educators, what are our roles in children’s development? Paranoid thoughts, or excess suspicions that others deliberately intend to cause harm, are common amongst adults in the general population. When persistent and held with conviction, this paranoia may precede delusions and significant mental health problems. Despite the growing evidence that paranoia exists on a spectrum of severity in adults and early psychotic like symptoms increase the odds for later psychosis, studies of paranoia have largely focused on adult patients and college students and attention on children has been a clear omission. One of many prevailing challenges lie in the assessment of suspicions: whether or not children’s suspicions are genuine or unfounded.
In this talk I will give voice to children’s conception of social mistrust and the known risk factors associated with their suspicions. I will examine how children’s excess suspicions adversely affect their mental health and the clinical and theoretical implications associated with these findings. In order to prevent childhood suspiciousness, comorbid mental health issues and other far-reaching societal problems, I will argue that we need more rigorous methods to understand the underlying risk factors of childhood suspicions. On way of investigating the nature of children’s suspicions is by using virtual reality experiments; to carefully manipulate, test, and ultimately treat children’s suspicions in the early years of development.
Biography
Dr Keri Wong is the Betty Behrens Research Fellow (JRF) at the University of Cambridge Clare Hall College and an affiliated lecturer at the Cambridge Department of Psychology and the Faculty of Education. She received her Ph.D. in Social and Developmental Psychology from the University of Cambridge (2015) and completed her M.A. and B.A. (Hons) in Criminology and Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania respectively (2010). As of 2018, she is an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society.