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Dr. Howe did her undergraduate work at U.C. Santa Barbara, and her graduate work at U.C. Riverside, in the area of developmental psychology. She did her master's and doctoral work on abused children's social and emotional development. Her work with abused children led her to delve deeply into the theory and research of parent-child attachment. She began to recognize that violence is not just a problem with individual families, but that societies allow violence to occur. In addition to adhering strongly to attachment theory, she formed theoretical alliances with Vygotsky's sociocultural theory (recognizing the importance of more advanced members of one's culture for the individual's cognitive growth), and Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Theory (showing how each individual exists within multiple systems of influence, from families, to neighborhoods, to media, to culture).
When Tasha finished her Ph.D., she went on to an N.I.M.H. sponsored postdoctoral program to pursue the field of Developmental Psychopathology at Vanderbilt University. She completed a study on the impact of the timing of abuse on children's externalizing (e.g. aggression) and internalizing (e.g. depression) problems. The field of Developmental Psychopathology recognizes the importance of studying both normal developmental milestones and atypical transformations of children's functioning together.
Dr. Howe's first faculty position was at a small, private liberal arts college in Kentucky, where she specialized in all forms of human development, both normal and abnormal. She came to H.S.U. in 2002. The courses Dr. Howe teaches are listed to the right.
She is currently interested in community-based research, working with various social service and child health and development agencies on violence prevention and community and family violence issues. She supervises student research on any topic related to child development or family relations/violence issues. She also conducts research on the field of teaching (pedagogy) and regularly presents at national conferences regarding teaching techniques, student involvement, and combining faculty research with both teaching and community service. She was a 2004 Service-Learning Fellow at H.S.U., illustrating her commitment to connecting students with children, families, and organizations in the local community. She thinks "town-gown" connections are vital for violence prevention and helping children reach their developmental potential.
Dr. Howe was a 2008 Fulbright Scholar to the island nation of Cyprus. She worked with both Greek and Turkish Cypriots on issues related to child maltreatment and violence prevention. This included teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in both communities, speaking at conferences in Cyprus and Athens, Greece, and training Greek Cypriot social workers, educators, and police professionals on the skills of violence prevention with families. She also did a large public lecture for government ministers and dignitaries on the effects of media violence on children's socioemotional and brain development. This led to an invitation to speak at the U.S. Embassy on the same topic.
Tasha is a nationally certified trainer for the ACT (Adults and Children Together) Against Violence program run by the American Psychological Association.
To learn more about this program, click on the link to your right.
She currently has a textbook in press with Blackwell Wiley called Marriages and Families in the 21st Century: A BioEcological Approach, which will be available for Fall, 2010 courses in psychology, sociology, family studies, nursing, and social work.
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