The 19th OCCASIONAL TEMPERAMENT CONFERENCE.
Salt Lake City, Utah, January 11-13, 2013
Mary Rothbart's Keynote Address at OTC 2013
Let it Snow!
The 19th Occasional Temperament Conference was held at Westminster College in Salt Lake City Utah. In spite of an unexpected snowstorm, the meeting was attended by about 75 researchers, clinicians and students. The theme of the conference was "Becoming Who We Are," the title of Mary Rothbart's recent book. Mary delivered the keynote address. Roy Martin and Mary Kurcinka were announced as the Jan Kristal Memorial Award winners. The conference was notable for the number of papers investigating genes and temperament, and others looking at role of executive functions in relation to the effortful control dimension. The next OTC scheduled for Fall 2014 will be hosted by Kathleen Rudasill at the University of Nebraska.
Click here for OTC 2013 presentations
The 18th Occasional Temperament Conference
Professionals gather to share findings, ideas
Click to enlarge OTC photo
2010 Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine
(This summary is based on a report filed by Bill Carey.) The meeting was hosted by Sam Putnam and his group at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. It was in some ways a transitional year, which he managed masterfully. (Earlier Bowdoin graduates such as Hawthorne, Longfellow, and Ambassador George Mitchell would be proud.)
Attendance was about 80, larger than the usual 50 or so, bigger but not too big. The usual friendly atmosphere prevailed and there was sufficient time to discuss matters formally and informally. Participants were the usual mixture of academic and clinical practitioner researchers, coming from all over the USA, several countries in Europe, and elsewhere.
The program offered various aspects of temperament research. Theoretical investigations covered environmental effects on, and interactions of temperament with, family, school, and culture and physical ones like intrauterine cocaine exposure. Discussion of clinical applications included problem solving in pediatrics, nursing, clinical psychology and education. Other discussions focused on "What is temperament now?" and temperament-cognitive links. The 24 posters offered further views.
A novelty this year was three simultaneous preconference workshops on person-centered analysis, clinical applications, and cross-cultural data. Previously we have avoided splitting up the whole group in any way in order to avoid creating factions. I believe, however, that this year's experience demonstrated that such special interest sessions are a valuable addition to consider repeating next time.
Another innovation was the initiation of the Kristal award. This was named for Jan Kristal, who hosted the previous OTC meeting in 2008 in San Rafael, CA, but who died of cancer shortly after. The intention was to recognize at each OTC meeting a person who like Jan has made significant contributions to the clinical applications of temperament research, which is much in need of encouragement. The ad hoc committee (who excluded themselves from consideration) decided on three recipients for this year in order to catch up after 12 years with no such recognition. Those honored: Barbara Keogh, Jim Cameron, and Sean McDevitt. We expect this to become a regular part of the OTC.
The 17th Occasional Temperament Conference
Professionals who presented at OTC
Click to enlarge OTC photo
OTC 2008 was held October 17-18, 2008 in the San Francisco Bay area. The meetings were organized by Jan Kristal at Dominican University in San Rafael. This event marked the 30th year since the first occasional temperament conference, held in Lund, Sweden. The conference theme was: Research and Clinical Applications across the Lifespan.
The meeting was attended by 50+ clinicians, researchers and students, with attendees from all around the US and Europe. Notable temperament researchers such as Mary Rothbart, Roy Martin, Berit Hegekull, Ivan Mervielde, Sara Harkness, Charles Super, James Cameron, Diana Guerin, Sandee McClowry and others were in attendance as were clincians such as William Carey, Elaine Aron, Sean McDevitt, Jan Kristal, Helen Neville and Alice Shannon. Commentary was provided by Mary Rothbart, William Carey, Hedi Teglasi and Xing Zhou.
The schedule of presentations at the meetings can be found at the OTC website.
Click here to visit the OTC 2008 website.
