Invigoration Grants

Frank Wijnen (Humanities) and Elise de Bree (Social and Behavioral Sciences) – Improving Spontaneous Language Analysis: Identifying False Starts Automatically

The prevalence of developmental language delays in children is estimated at 25%. Such delays can be due to (quantitatively and/or qualitatively) insufficient spoken language input. This project will work on the improvement of SASTA. SASTA is an application with the aim to improve and accelerate the assessment / diagnosis of developmental language delays and disorders (and also of acquired language disorders in adults [aphasia]), as well as monitoring language progress. Accurate diagnoses that can be attained within a limited time span will help improve the quality of language interventions in clinical (therapy) and educational (remediation) settings. The goal of this project is to make SASTA able to automatically detect and repair false starts in order for the linguistic analysis of spontaneous language sessions with children and patients to be more accurate.

Joost de Laat (Law, Economics and Governance), Joyce Browne (Medicine) and Maria van der Harst (Law, Economics and Governance) – Self-efficacy and goal setting among adolescent Roma mothers: learning from a nurse family home visiting program in Bulgaria

Vulnerable first-time mothers worldwide lack access to the resources, support and health care needed to achieve good health and wellbeing for themselves and their child. This includes young Roma women in Europe, a particularly disadvantaged group. While there has been growing research on self-efficacy (for instance in educational achievement), there is still little known about self-efficacy and its potential as a protective factor among disadvantaged adolescents (Hamill 2003), how it relates to resilient behaviors in response to adversity (Cassidy 2015), and how it can be nurtured. The goal of this project is therefore to deepen our understanding on the manifestations, determinants, and impacts of self-efficacy and goal-setting among first-time vulnerable Roma mothers and their young children.

Open Call

Rengin Isik Akin (Social and Behavioral Sciences) – Travel Fund Application for EARA2022

The aim of this proposal is to apply for a travel fund for the EARA2022 (European Association of Research on Adolescence Conference) in Dublin, Ireland. Rengin’s research focuses on how family relationships in late adolescence and early adulthood are intertwined with the transition to move out of the family house. Rengin examines both the family predictors of moving out and the consequences of moving out for family relationships, in two cultures, Turkey and The Netherlands. At EARA2022, Rengin presented findings from her most recent analyses on the data she collected in Turkey with Turkish adolescents. By understanding the opportunities and challenges associated with home-leaving and the effects on family relationships and young individuals’ well-being may shed light in how to support both youth and their families before and after important life transitions.

Willy Sier (Social and Behavioral Sciences) – Book & grant writing mobility grant Dream Chasers: Rural Chinese students in urban universities

This fund supports a 2-month writing and research period in Paris for Willy Sier, where she have been invited by Professor Catherine Capdeville-Zeng at the Institute National des Langues et Civilationes Orientales (INALCO). Willy Sier will spend two months in Paris working on her book Dream Chasers: Rural Chinese students in urban universities in an inspiring environment, while at the same time discussing future research collaborations with China scholars at INALCO which will form the basis of an application for a FIAS research grant in March 2023.

Andrik Becht (Social and Behavioral Sciences), Tim Favier (Geosciences) and Eco-schools Nederland (Societal partner) – Developing and piloting a questionnaire to understand adolescents’ ecological identity development and pro-environmental behaviors: A co-creation with teachers and students

This interdisciplinary research project was sparked by a personal concern by Andrik Becht about our natural environment and a meeting with the coordinator of Eco-Schools Netherlands (the societal partner in this project) where we talked about effective ingredients to stimulate adolescents’ pro-environmental behaviors (e.g., shifting to a plant-based diet). Many of Eco-Schools teachers’ struggle with questions of when and how they can best motivate their students to show more pro-environmentally friendly behaviors. Preliminary evidence in adult samples suggest that ecological identity – the extent to which environmentalism is an important part of the self – positively impacts pro-environmental behaviors. Yet, empirical evidence on the role of ecological identity in stimulating pro-environmental behaviors in adolescents is limited. The main goal of this interdisciplinary research project is therefore to increase our understanding of the role of ecological identity to stimulate adolescents’ pro-environmental behaviors.

Invigoration Grants

Sander Bakkes (Science), Stefanie Nelemans (Social and Behavioral Sciences), Heidi Lesscher (Veterinary Medicine), Julian Frommel (Science) – Shoulder-to-Shoulder: How Pinball Supports Emotional Self-Disclosure of Children

The present research connects to the recent sharp deterioration in youth’s mental health in general, and a substantial increase in emotional problems among youth. The HBSC 2021 report particularly highlights the importance of good social relationships to cope with the challenges of contemporary life. Crucial for establishing such social relationships is emotional self-disclosure; enabling peers to provide support for challenges that an individual may experience. A context that is supportive for mental health, in fact, is pinball. For the present research, the potential that pinball provides for emotional self-disclosure is further investigated. The proposed research builds upon a dataset of in-depth semi-structured interviews with pinball enthusiasts.  Also, the proposed research builds on existing methods that analyze qualitative data to code for self-disclosure. Finally, the research leverages tools and expertise from the UU Department of Information and Computing Sciences on the automated aggregation, principal component analysis, and computational modeling of multimodal behavioural data – for the creation of a new, rich dataset of child play interactions.

Lotte Gerritsen (Social and Behavioral Sciences), Stefanie Nelemans (Social and Behavioral Sciences), Marijke Achterbeg (Veterinary Medicine), Anne Marieke Doornweerd (Social and Behavioral Sciences) – The role of hormonal contraceptive use on adolescent stress reactivity and subsequent anxiety and depressive symptom trajectories

Adolescence is a vulnerable period for the development of internalizing behavior problems, such as depression and anxiety. While rates of these symptoms are generally low in childhood, they increase to near-adult prevalence levels in adolescence. Moreover, girls experience internalizing symptoms twice as often as boys. Hence, it is crucial to get a better understanding of what makes adolescent girls more susceptible to develop mood and anxiety symptoms and disorders. The overarching aim of the current proposal is to gain novel nuanced insights into the (neurobiological) nature of the association between adolescent oral contraceptive (OC) use, adolescent stress-reactivity, and females’ anxiety and depressive symptom trajectories into young adulthood by applying a longitudinal indirect effects/mediation model. Data from the RADAR-study (https://doi.org/10.17026/dans-zrb-v5wp; UU Department of Youth & Family) will be used, building the recent collaborative study between some of the applicants of this proposal on adolescent hormonal contraceptive use and mood and anxiety trajectories.

Frans Adriaans (Humanities), Heysem Kaya (Science), Anika van der Klis (Humanities) – Linguistic and paralinguistic characteristics of Dutch infant-directed speech and early infant vocalizations: a computational perspective

When adults speak to infants, they change the way they speak. For example, adults start speaking at a higher pitch and use wider intonation contours. It is currently unclear whether these speech modifications help or hinder early language development. Recent research has focused on developing computational models that can resolve conflicting findings in this area. However, such models crucially need to be trained and tested on large annotated datasets of infant-directed speech, and such datasets are currently not widely available. One complication in the creation of new datasets is that the particular speech characteristics pose a challenge for automated annotation tools that can facilitate the time-consuming process of data annotation. The current project aims to make both theoretical and practical advancements in the study of early language development by producing a new version of an existing dataset containing Dutch infant-directed and adult-directed speech, as well as vocalizations by 18- and 24-month-old infants (Han, 2019, Utrecht University).

Arjen Koppen (Medicine), Gonneke Stevens (Social and Behavioral Sciecnes), Saskia Rietjens (Medicine), Margreet de Looze (Social and Behavioral Sciences), Sebastianus Oude Ophuis (Medicine) – Multidisciplinary integrative approach to investigate trends in adolescent mental health

The goals of this study are threefold: 1. Getting a deeper understanding of the decline in mental health between 2001 and 2022 among young people in the Netherlands, by age and gender, by analyzing and linking data from three data sources, which are complementary in terms of the informant used and severity of mental health problems; 2. Understanding potential links between recently observed increases in perceived schoolwork pressure, emotional problems and hyperactivity-inattention problems and the use of methylphenidate among young people by combining self-report and national level data. 3. Actively stimulating linkages between different data sources and create multidisciplinary research groups to interpret the available data on young people’s mental health. This includes intensifying the collaboration between the involved research groups from Utrecht University and UMC Utrecht by sharing our data and expertise, but it also entails reaching out to potential local partners and data sources in Utrecht, such as from Spoor030 and KOOS. These organizations are responsible for the care of children with mental health problems in the municipality of Utrecht.

Tim Takken (Medicine) – Summerschool Paediatric Sport & Exercise Medicine 2023

Sport and Exercise are important for typically developing children as well as for children with chronic disease. This Summerschool will give a thorough introduction in pediatric sport and exercise medicine. During this week the current evidence regarding clinical pediatric exercise physiology and the role of exercise as medicine will be summarized. Moreover, skills will be practiced regarding anthropometrics, physical activity, fitness testing, and fitness training. Speakers are from faculty of Medicine UU/UMC, Veterinary  Medicine UU, Hogeschool Utrecht. Also Prof Jeroen Dudink (DoY  Community chair) will speak about Sleep and Performance.

Shanshan Bi (Social and Behavioral Sciences) – Travel grant to attend the Society for Research on Adolescence (SRA) 2023 Annual Meeting

At the conference, Shanshan will present her research on “Changes in Late Adolescents’ Trust Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic” as part of a joint Flash Talk session with five other researchers from other international universities. This collaboration demonstrates the significance of bringing together researchers from different backgrounds to address pressing issues affecting youth. In addition, with its theme of “Keeping Pace with a Changing World,” the conference program focuses on adolescent development and includes engaging presentations, thought-provoking discussions, and informative poster sessions that will provide opportunities to connect with leading international researchers and scholars in the field.

Gaëlle Ouvrein (Social and Behavioral Sciences) – Travel grant to attend the 73e conference of the International Communication Association (ICA)

Gaëlle Ouvrein will present her recent work on adolescent development and social media at the annual conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) in Toronto, which is the largest communication sciences conference in the world. By presenting her research as a communication scientist active in an interdisciplinary group, she can showcase the importance and relevance of the interdisciplinary approach and further promote it. By starting her presentation from a clear problem in youth development (i.e., online aggression toward famous people), she can illustrate the challenge-based approach and prove the clear commitment to improving youth development by working across disciplines.

Dzhansel Karakash (Social and Behavioral Sciences) – Travel Fund Application for ECDP 2023

Dzhansel Karakash applied for a travel fund to attend the European Conference on Developmental Psychology (ECDP) in Turku, Finland. The findings of her research on the intergenerational transmission of negative parenting behaviors will offer important knowledge on intergenerational transmission, as the study will use data from different generations collected in a period of over 20 years. This work also fits very well within the Dynamics of Youth community Early Childhood and Thriving and Healthy Youth. Sharing and discussing the results with international experts will not only be important for receiving expert input on the results and implications but will also greatly contribute to the visibility of our work internationally.

Thomas van Huizen (Law, Economics and Governance) – Research visit University of Oslo – EQOP/CREATE

The application concerns a grant to fund a short research stay (3 weeks) at the University of Oslo hosted by Henrik Zachrisson, whom received funding for a Centre of Excellence (CREATE-Centre for Research on Equality in Education). In terms of aims and mission, the new Centre for Excellence is closely related to Dynamics of Youth. Multidisciplinary and societal impact are key features of the Centre. It is therefore relevant to be connected to this Norwegian Centre for Excellence. The Norwegian centre focuses on early childhood and education; there is therefore a clear link with research within the DoY communities early childhood and youth education & life skills.