Dr. Cook is currently involved as a Research Scientist on several grants promoting language and literacy. She is an evaluator on multiple grants and has also been working on a project to develop a parenting measure. The PICCOLO measure is an easy to use measure of parenting skills developed for use by home visitors and researchers.
Dr. Cook has worked at Utah State University since 1995 for the Early Head Start (EHS) research project as well as the Early Intervention Research Center and is currently under the IDT division at the CPD. She is a program evaluator, Head Start teaching coach, and an Early Intervention home visitor trainer on projects that are designed to increase adult-child language interactions and support child self-regulation. Dr. Cook was the Data Management Coordinator for a project that developed a measure to be used by Early Head Start home visitors to evaluate parent-child interactions (PICCOLO). As part of these projects, she has trained Head Start teachers and home visitors, assisted in the development of coding schemes to be used to assess parent-child interactions, evaluated programs, supervised coding teams, supervised the data entry, cleanup, labeling, and archiving of data, collected and analyzed data, and assisted in grant and report writing. She has collaborated on writing for dissemination, preparing presentations for research conferences, and manuscripts for publication. As the project manager of several studies she has been responsible for hiring, supervising, and training data collectors and choosing instruments for these studies. She has also assisted in the preparation and development of new curriculum and measurement tools.
Her particular interests include the development of social competence and pre-literacy skills, both critical components of school success. She is also interested in understanding longitudinal developmental processes and supportive environments, at homes and in childcare centers and preschools, which lead to later academic and life success.
Dr. Cook received her Ph.D. in Family and Human Development from Utah State University, with an emphasis on infancy and early child development.
