Ruth Brookman

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Verified

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• PhD/Master of Clinical Psychology
• Research Fellow | Clinical Psychologist at Western Sydney University

This longitudinal study investigated the effects of maternal emotional health concerns, on infants' home language environment, vocalization quantity, and expressive language skills. Mothers and their infants (at 6 and 12 months; 21 mothers with depression and or anxiety and 21 controls) provided day-long home-language recordings. Compared with cont...

Maternal depression and anxiety have been proposed to increase the risk of adverse outcomes of language development in the early years of life. This study investigated the effects of maternal depression and anxiety on language development using two approaches: (i) a categorical approach that compared lexical abilities in two groups of children, a r...

The death of a loved one has been associated with a range of emotional and cognitive impacts, with up to 10% of the bereaved population experiencing a prolonged grief reaction. Direct investigation of the role of self-identity in the maintenance of grief symptoms is limited and has not discriminated between relationship type. This longitudinal stud...

In English-speaking western cultures the punitive attitudes towards lawbreakers is well documented. The present study examines the utility of predictors of punitive attitudes with online survey data obtained from a convenience sample of 566 Australian residents. After controlling for demographic variables, the study examines the utility of two theo...

Dementia care provision is a global challenge. However, dynamics to provide care to a family member living with dementia in their home are far more complex. Evidence suggests that dementia care among culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities is largely offered by family members within communities. But at a family level, care happens...

Background and Objectives Family care partners of people with dementia are not typically the focus of healthcare and aged care providers. They experience unmet needs, missed opportunities for support, and barriers to wellbeing that impact the dyad. This longitudinal study aimed to understand the experience of care partners, mapping their journey as...

Both the quantity and quality of the maternal language input are important for early language development. However, depression and anxiety can negatively impact mothers’ engagement with their infants and their infants’ expressive language abilities. Australian mother-infant dyads ( N = 30) participated in a longitudinal study examining the effect o...

Having a traumatic or negative event at the centre of one’s identity is associated with adverse psychological outcomes including post-traumatic stress, depression, and prolonged grief disorder (PGD). However, direct investigation of the role of centrality of a bereavement-event in the maintenance of PGD symptoms is scarce and has not compared immed...

Background: Longitudinal studies highlight the importance of early intervention and timely device fitting for language development in children with congenital or early acquired hearing loss. Due to the variability in hearing loss, comorbidities, family circumstances, and service access, individualised monitoring of listening development is essentia...

Background Assistive technology is becoming increasingly accessible and affordable for supporting people with dementia and their care partners living at home, with strong potential for technology-based prompting to assist with initiation and tracking of complex, multistep activities of daily living. However, there is limited direct comparison of di...

Background The transition into residential aged care is frequently associated with a reduction in physical activity, social engagement, and emotional wellbeing. Our aim was to evaluate the impact of a 26-day international cycling competition (Road Worlds Competition for Seniors), incorporating elements of exercise, audiovisual cycling footage, soci...

BACKGROUND Assistive technology is becoming increasingly accessible and affordable for supporting people with dementia and their care partners living at home, with strong potential for technology-based prompting to assist with initiation and tracking of complex, multistep activities of daily living. However, there is limited direct comparison of di...

Background The development of technology in dementia care has largely been without consultation with carers, and has primarily focused on safety, monitoring devices, and supporting activities of daily living. Further, while involving end-users in the design of technology has been recommended, this is yet to become common practice. Method We conduc...

With the recent recommendations by the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety (2021), and an increasing streamline of care workers from overseas entering into the Australian aged-care sector. Ensuring quality of life and well-being of vulnerable older adults' (aged 60+) living with dementia, has become a national concern. The purpose of...

Memory compensation strategies serve an important role in everyday functioning, especially in the face of cognitive decline. Research on the external memory compensation strategies employed by older adults has focused almost entirely on non-digital tools. Less is known about how memory compensation strategies might have changed due to the rapid and...

High levels of maternal responsiveness are associated with healthy cognitive and emotional development in infants. However, depression and anxiety can negatively impact individual mothers’ responsiveness levels and infants’ expressive language abilities. Australian mother-infant dyads (N = 48) participated in a longitudinal study examining the effe...

Memories of the past are critically important as we age. For older adults receiving formal care in a range of settings, reminiscing with care staff may provide frequent opportunities for recalling autobiographical memories with a supportive conversational partner. Importantly, prior research suggests that some reminiscing conversations are more sup...

Social anxiety can have an adverse effect on social connections, educational achievement, and wellbeing. However, the extent to which students stigmatize their peers with social anxiety disorder (SAD) in female educational settings remains unknown. This study investigated the relationship between SAD, peer-liking and stigma in a cohort of early ado...

The racial animus model argues that public support for punitive sentencing of criminal offenders is shaped by threat perceptions associated with cultural minority groups. This study applies the racial animus model to examine support for the punitive sentencing of criminal offenders in the United States and Australia. It also examines whether racial...

Purpose. This study compares the attitudes of American and Australian general populations on a continuum of punitive-rehabilitative attitudes toward various criminal offences, in order to test the theory of American Exceptionalism. Method. The data for the study were collected via an online survey of the American and Australian public. Six criminal...

p class="APABody"> In English-speaking Western society’s punitive attitudes towards the sentencing of criminal offenders is a well-established phenomenon. Two theoretical models; the Crime-distrust model and Racial-animus model are demonstrated predictors of punitive attitudes. However, little is known about how racial prejudice impacts the associa...

The study presents preliminary data obtained from a community sample of 32 mother-infant dyads at infant age of 6 months. Mother-infant dyads were classified into at-risk (n = 16) or control groups (n = 16) based on maternal psychological history and postnatal depression and anxiety measures. Home audio recordings (1x calendar day = 12 hours) were...