Psychology

Profile

Background

In 2008 I graduated at La Sapienza University of Rome, with Bsc in Clinical Psychology. I worked on a new tool to evaluate the Q-Sort therapeutic alliance between patient and therapist, called "Therapeutic Alliance Q-Sort", under the direction of Prof. Vittorio Lingiardi.

In 2010 I completed my Masters in Clinical Psychology and Dynamics (Hons) at La Sapienza University of Rome. My thesis focuses on the experimental study of the cooperative skills in children diagnosed with autism. Reformulating some earlier experiments, we built a pilot study with a structured task to assess whether, and how, children diagnosed with high-functioning autism were able to cooperate with an adult in order to achieve a shared goal. This work was carried out under the supervision of Prof. Nino Dazzi, La Sapienza University, in collaboration with the Bambino Gesù Paediatric Hospital, Department of Neuropsychiatry (Dr. GiovanniValeri).

After completing my degree, I was a clinical and research assistant in the Department of Neuropsychiatry of Bambino Gesù Paediatric Hospital. Between 2010 and 2011 I did a research internship in the babylab of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, under the supervision of Dr. Franziska Kopp. During that time I studied the perception of audio-visual dys-synchrony in infants of 3 and 6 months.

Research Interests

I am currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Portsmouth under the supervision of Prof. Vasudevi Reddy, Prof Alan Costall and Dr. Beatriz Lopéz.

My research interests in general are quite large. Mainly, my research interests concern child development, peer-cooperation in children with ASD, development of intersubjectivity, all seen from a developmental perspective. During my thesis I had the opportunity to investigate issues relating to autism and developmental age, discovering a great interest in this area. Experience in the Department of Pediatrics me deeply linked and involved in the study of social skills, emotional and social effects on children with autism spectrum disorders. In addition, the study of early signs in individuals at high risk for autism (siblings of individuals diagnosed with) made me focus on the possibility of finding  ecological methods and approaches for early diagnosis.

Currently, through my PhD, I'd like to investigate the development of cooperation and “sense of weness” in infants and children, and its relation to self awareness. I've found myself interested on mutual engagement through early affective exchanges between infants and caregivers. in particular I would like to work on mutual motor adjustment as markers for the ability to collaborate and share intentionality.

I'm also part of the Autism Research Network (ARN) http://www.port.ac.uk/departments/academic/psychology/research/autismresearchnetwork/