Efrat Sher-Censor

Efrat Sher-Censor is the Head of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Child Development, the School of Psychological Sciences, the University of Haifa, Israel. She studies the representations that children, parents and caregivers construct regarding their relationships, and explores how these representations shape their interactions and predict children's adjustment. She is particularly interested in children at-risk, such as children with special needs and children from immigrant and ethnic minority families.

Dr. Sher-Censor is currently conducting three longitudinal research projects: The first study, in collaboration with Prof. Tuppett M. Yates from UC Riverside, CA, is funded by the US National Science Foundation, and follows children from preschool to adolescence to examine the effects of the representations which parents and children construct regarding their relationships on children's competence in diverse contexts. The second research examines the effects of the quality of mother-preterm infant's interaction and early neuromotor deficits of the infant on socio-emotional adjustment and motor development in childhood. The third study is in collaboration with Dr. Smadar Dolev from Oranim Academic College for Education, Israel. This study follows teachers and children with Developmental Delay in special education kindergarteners to explore the associations between teachers' representations, the quality of teacher-child interaction, and child adaptation.