Marjorie Beeghly, PhD

Department	Developmental Medicine
Hospital Title	Senior Research Associate in Pediatrics
Academic Title	Assistant Professor in Pediatrics
Phone	617-355-4609
Fax	617-730-0074
Email	Marjorie Beeghly
Location	1295 Boylston Street, Suite 320 Boston MA 02115

Research Overview

Much of Dr. Beeghly's research focuses on the behavior and development of children at risk for developmental problems, such as children born prematurely with or without white matter brain injury, children exposed prenatally to drugs of abuse, children of depressed mothers, maltreated children, and children with Down syndrome. She also conducts research with typically developing children, including children from understudied racial/ethnic and socio-economic groups. She is especially interested in children's socio-communicative, cognitive, and socio- emotional functioning (and interrelations among these domains) and how parenting and other risk and protective factors may support or derail children's functioning in these areas.

A major goal in Dr. Beeghly's research is to evaluate the association between child gender and various risk conditions (e.g., very low birth weight, white matter brain injury, maternal depression, socio-economic status, prenatal cocaine exposure) and children's communicative, cognitive, and socio-emotional functioning. A related goal is to evaluate whether parent-child "mutual regulatory" processes (e.g., joint attention, shared affect, maternal responsivity) observed during social interaction mediate the relation between risk status and children's outcomes. A second goal is to identify specific child, parental, familial, and socio-cultural contextual factors that are associated with children's positive outcomes in different groups of children and parents. A third goal is to evaluate the severity and persistence of maternal depressive symptoms during the first postpartum years and whether maternal symptomatology is associated with contextual risk factors, mother-child interaction, or maternal and child psychosocial functioning.

Dr. Beeghly's longitudinal research provides detailed information about children's behavior and development in different groups and how parenting and other factors may affect them. This information may be useful to educators, policymakers, clinicians, and other professionals as they design and implement developmentally-sensitive assessment, intervention, and treatment protocols for different groups of children at risk for developmental problems and their families.

About Marjorie Beeghly

Dr Beeghly attended University of Colorado, Boulder, where she received her PhD. She later completed post-graduate training at Harvard University and University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Dr. Beeghly has received the Outstanding Research Study Award from the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC) and the Award For Excellence For Outstanding Contributions in the Infant-Parent Field from the Boston Institute for the Development of Infants and Parents (BIDIP).

Key Publications

• Beeghly M, Frank DA, Rose-Jacobs R, Cabral H., "Tronick EZ, Level of prenatal cocaine exposure and infant-caregiver attachment behavior." Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 2003, 25(1): 23-38.
• Beeghly M, Olson KL, Weinberg MK, Pierre SC, Downey N, Tronick EZ. "Prevalence, stability, and socio-demographic correlates of depressive symptoms in Black mothers during the first 18 months postpartum." Maternal and Child Health Journal, 2003, 7 (3), 157-168.
• Beeghly M, Martin B, Rose-Jacobs R, Cabral H, Heeren T, Augustyn M, Bellinger D, Frank DA. "Prenatal cocaine exposure and language outcomes at 6 and 9.5 years: Moderating effects of age, birthweight, and gender." Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 2005, in press.