Andrea D. (Andi) Clements, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Psychology

Most of my research falls into the category of preventing problems before they occur as children are developing. That interest surfaces in my prenatal development studies, studies of parenting practices, and studies of children who are highly active and/or inattentive.

I'm known many places as "the spit lady." I am interested in hormonal changes that take place in women when they are pregnant and physiological changes these changes cause in their unborn children. I am even interested in how women's temperaments (thought to be innate and physiologically-based) are predictive of and maybe even cause their children's development to take a certain path. I measure the level of cortisol (which goes up with stress, alcohol use, and for many other reasons) in saliva, hence the nickname. Not only is cortisol my favorite hormone, but much other research is being done with it currently which benefits my research. Some things I am currently working on are:

• Determining the relationships among maternal prenatal stress and infant temperament
• Observing maternal/toddler interaction and examining the relationship among emotional involvement, temperament, and prenatal and birth factors
• Developing intervention strategies to reduce prenatal stress in pregnant adolescents
• Investigating physiological stressors in fetuses and their behavior after they are born.

• Determining whether salivary cortisol measurements are similar when different saliva stimulants are used (e.g., KoolAid, citric acid, Sweetarts, marshmallows) - We now know that marshmallows affect cortisol concentrations the least, and that KoolAid and citric acid result in erroneously high cortisol concentrations
• Discovering how physicians in this geographic area determine Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) diagnoses - diagnostic methods vary widely
• Determining whether one needs to freeze saliva (there's that spit thing again) immediately, or if the cortisol levels are stable enough to go through the mail unfrozen - it doesn't have to be frozen immediately and it can be mailed (although in some areas it is considered a hazardous material)
• Developing a theory of prenatal hormonal programming of children's hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axes (Mom's hormones program the baby to produce hormones at a certain level)
• Drawing the conclusion that mild traumatic brain injuries are often overlooked when people have other significant traumatic injuries

• Tracking women's stress levels throughout pregnancy, and using relaxation techniques to reduce stress (and cortisol), then determining if the levels are related to the activity level of her child after it is born

This page was last updated: 03/13/2007