Our Faculty

Publications

Sandler-Saban, G. (2017). Age, circumstance, and outcome in child survivors of the Holocaust.. . In E. Fogelman, S. Kangisser Cohen, and D. Ofer (Eds). Understanding the Judith Kestenberg Child Survivor Testimony Collection: Historical, linguistic, and psychological approaches. Brooklyn, NY, USA: Bergham Books.

PRESENTATIONS

Sossin, K. (2016, June 25). staff and trainees at Youth Consultation Service (YCS), Infant and Preschool Mental Health Programs.. The Infant-Parent Interchange: Sequential Movement Patterns and Embodied Intentionality:From Research to Practice. YCS / Infant Mental Health Section, East Orange, NJ.

Sharkey, J. M., , K. M. & Mowder, B. (2016, June 2). Biannual International Congress of World Association for Infant Mental Health . Emotional availability, parent-role, maternal personality, and infant temperament: Factors influencing the mother-infant dyad. WAIMH, Prague, Czech Republic.

Sharkey, J. M., , . M. & Mowder, B. (2016, June 2). World Association for Infant Mental Health Congress. Emotional availability, parent-role, maternal personality, and infant temperament: Factors influencing the mother-infant dyad. WAIMH, Prague, Czech Republic.

Bromberg, Y., Herbst-Paparne, R., Sossin, K., Beebe, B. & Ward, A. (2016, June 2). World Association for Infant Mental Health Congress. Sequential Analysis of Shape-Flow Patterns Among 12-Month Olds Correspondent to Maternal Dependency and Self-Criticism:A Microanalytic KMP Application. WAIMH, Prague, Czech Republic.

Beebe, B., Hoven, C., Sossin, K., Cohen, P. & et al., . (2016, May 26). International Conference on Infant Studies ICIS. Risk & Resilience in 9/11 Pregnant Widows and Their Infants at 4 Months: Urgent Repair.. International Association for Infant Studies, New Orleans, LA.

RESEARCH INTEREST

Ongoing research on infant-parent interaction, transmission of stress, autism, nonverbal/movement behavior, early childhood affective development.

Grants, Sponsored Research and Contracts

Narrative, Movement & Social Cognition{ Implications for Therapy and Education for those with ASD
Sossin, K. April 2016 - April 2018. Scholarly Research Award / Pace University , Pace University , $2,634.00. Funded. The aim of this study is to gain understanding of how social cognition and stress mediate communication patterns evidenced in college students: both those with and without autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Both narrative style and content and nonverbal behavior (especially body-movement patterns), have been noted to be distinct in young adults with ASD. Tapping a sample of college-students with ASD (demonstrating High Functioning Autism—ASD) will allow for direct comparison with a matched sample of similarly aged college students considered neurotypical. The literature indicates that access to abstraction and affect are both restricted in individuals with ASD, and that this would be true in accessing episodic memory as well as in generating imagination. Literature also indicates the key role stress (especially manifested as social anxiety) plays in accentuating ASD symptomatology. Story-telling involves awareness of emotions, as well as other nonverbal aspects of a situation. One portal into narrative is the WRAD (Bucci & Maskit, 2009), providing measurement of the construct 'Referential Activity.' [“Referential activity is a bidirectional linking process by which nonverbal experience, including imagery and emotional experience, is connected to words, in a speaker's expression and in listeners connecting back to their own inner experience.”] Verbal expression of experiences or imaginative stories involves mentalization, selection of salient features and perspective taking, which are abilities typically found to be impaired in individuals with ASD. This study will examine the relationships among key variables, including social perception, self-expression and narrative formation in telling personal memories and making up stories about pictures. Incorporated lines of research will examine the interrelationship among social cognition, narrative content, referential activity in narrative, nonverbal prosodics (speech rhythms), nonverbal body movement (Kestenberg Movement Profile—KMP), diagnosis (ASD or not), stress (physiologically measured) and anxiety (paper-and-pencil measured). Outcomes of this study will shed light on emotional processing and consequently have implications for therapeutic interventions employed with this population

Practicum in Advanced Movement Studies
Sossin, K. & , . August 2016 - June 2017. Joint effort of Drexel University and Pace University $0.00. Funded. Dr. Sossin oversees training of Creative Arts PhD Candidate from Drexel University in Movement Docing methodologies> The Mind, Movement, Interaction and Development Research Group (MMID-RG), established by K. Mark Sossin, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at Pace University in New York, is a research laboratory that primarily focuses on the study nonverbal behavior, emotional development, parent-infant/toddler and child interaction, and developmental processes related to intersubjectivity, social-cognition, and mentalization.

MEDIA CONTRIBUTIONS

holocaustchildren.org/ [Internet]

http://www.kestenbergmovementprofile.org/ [Internet]

Slate.com [Internet], December 12 2011
My Little Haggler Episode 9 of Slate's Negotiation Academy on negotiating with children. By Jill Barshay and Seth Stevenson http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/negotiation/2011/12/slate_s_negotiation_academy_episode_9_negotiating_with_kids.html

USA Today [Newspaper], August 7 2011
• After 9/11, USA was more resilient than experts expected. By Sharon Jayson

Parents Magazine [Magazine], August 2010
“How to Decode Your Kid's Body Language.” By Robin Westen. Also reprinted in Parents.com

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

American Dance/Movement Therapy Association (Associate)

American Psychological Association

Association of Early Childhood & Infant Psychologists[Former President]

Child Development Research[Board of Directors]

ContemporaryFreudian Society[Training Analyst/Faculty]

International Psychoanalytical Association

World Association for Infant Mental Health