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| Primary Activity Coordinators: |
Research Research Director Training Director |
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| Specialty Resource Contacts: | SENSE Lab Director | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Project/Program/Clinic Contacts: | Director of Division of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Discipline(s): |
Psychiatry Psychology Neuropsychology |
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| AUCD Council Membership: |
No Council Membership |
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| Research: | Dr. Corbett is a pediatric neuropsychologist with over 85 peer-reviewed scientific papers and chapters. She is a licensed clinical psychologist (CA, TN) and has been assessing and treating children with autism spectrum disorders since 1991. She was awarded the Japanese-American Frontiers of Science Young Scientist award sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences, as well as several other foundational awards and grants. Her current research is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to study stress and arousal across pubertal development in autism. She has also received funding from NIMH to conduct randomized clinical trials of a novel intervention research program, SENSE Theatre, combining classic behavioral approaches with theatre techniques in a peer-mediated model for children, adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorder. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Education: | Dr. Corbett co-directs the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Internship in Professional Psychology (VUMC-IPP). | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Service: | Dr. Corbett is the Director for the Division of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. | ||||||||||||||||||||
Vita/Bio
Blythe Corbett's translational research program, the Social Emotional NeuroScience Endocrinology (SENSE) lab, aims to evaluate the socioemotional responsivity of children with autism by using several methods of analysis, including: sophisticated behavioral observational techniques; functional neuroimaging; and the assessment of biological markers of emotional arousal or stress, such as cortisol. Corbett examines the biobehavioral profiles of autism to better understand factors that enhance or diminish the response to social and nonsocial stress. The ultimate goal of these interwoven studies of peer interaction, play, and psychosocial stress is to directly translate into novel, efficacious treatments. In 2009, Corbett founded a non-profit, community-based intervention program, SENSE Theatre, which is a unique intervention research program that uses well established behavioral approaches alongside creative theatrical techniques designed to improve the social and emotional abilities of children with autism. Her current research projects include examining the regulation and responsivity of cortisol, behavioral and neural mechanisms of play in children with autism, and peer-mediated intervention.
