Election to Fellowship in the CAHS is considered one of the highest honours for individuals in the Canadian health sciences community. Pepler was elected to the CAHS for her demonstrated leadership, creativity, distinctive competencies and a commitment to advance academic health science.

Left: Debra Pepler

“I am very honoured to be nominated as a Fellow and look forward to contributing to the academy's efforts in health promotion through our collaborative efforts to promote the healthy development of children and youth through healthy relationships,” says Pepler.

Pepler has conducted two major research programs on children at risk within the context of peer relationships at school and in context of the family. To study aggression and bullying, she developed an innovative methodology to observe children’s interactions, which would normally be hidden from adults.

She was awarded a Networks of Centres of Excellence: New Initiatives grant to establish PREVNet – Promoting Relationships & Eliminating Violence Network together with Wendy Craig, her first 91��ɫ PhD student. This collaborative and interdisciplinary initiative brings together 62 researchers from 27 Canadian universities and 49 national organizations. The grant, the first stage of Canada’s largest funding mechanism, is the culmination of many years of work for Pepler, who has been tirelessly involved in community-based research and public policy development on pressing social issues related to children and youth.  

Pepler’s research has changed the way people think about bullying, aggression and other forms of violence, especially among marginalized and alienated young people. She speaks widely to professional and community audiences about children at risk. She has also edited four volumes in the past four years on understanding and addressing children’s aggression, bullying and victimization.

A professor in 91��ɫ’s Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Health since 1988, Pepler was also director of the LaMarsh Centre for Research on Violence & Conflict Resolution from 1994 to 2002. She has been a senior associate scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children since 2001.

In honour of her research, Pepler has previously been awarded the Contribution to Knowledge Award from the Psychology Foundation of Canada, the Educator of the Year Award from Phi Delta Kappa (Toronto), the University of Waterloo Arts in Academia Award and the Canadian Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Contributions to Public or Community Service.

Established in 2004, the works in partnership with the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Engineering to form the three member academies of the Council of Canadian Academies. The CAHS provides timely, informed and unbiased assessments of urgent issues affecting the health of Canadians.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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“The take home message is that autism research here at 91��ɫ isn’t just one thing,” psychology Professor Jonathan Weiss, chair of the 91��ɫ Autism Research Alliance (YARA) in the Faculty of Health, told the audience. “We want you to have a picture as you walk away from today of the breadth at which different faculty members with different areas of expertise are doing research.”

Left: Dorota Crawford (standing, left) and Jonathan Weiss answering questions from the audience

YARA is an interdisciplinary team of researchers at 91��ɫ that has been in existence for about two years. This was the first time it has reached out to a large range of community service providers as a group. The event was sponsored by .

“The goal was to provide an overview of the incredible range of autism research at 91��ɫ and reach out to service providers and start a conversation with them,” said Weiss. “It’s really about knowledge exchange. This was the first step in that exchange, and they can let us know what they are interested in. Rather than a one way street, it breaks down the academic silos.”

Weiss has just finished two pilot projects using cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) with people with ASD – one used CBT to help reduce anxiety and the other used it to help build anger management skills. Weiss wants to know if the interventions that already exist can be adapted to help children with ASD, who also suffer from things like anxiety and aggression.

Right: Kari Hoffman explains her research at the inaugural showcase of the 91��ɫ Autism Research Alliance

But that’s not all; he is also interested in knowing whether the level of health care and access to service for families with a teenager or adult with ASD is lacking in various parts of the province, what health care services they need and their experience of the system, and has embarked on a study to find out.

Dorota Crawford, a professor in 91��ɫ’s School of Kinesiology & Health Science, told the gathering she is researching whether genes or the environment are responsible for ASD. One of the things she is doing is trying to identify the genes responsible for specific symptoms of ASD and determine how they affect brain function. She has so far recruited 20 families with a child with ASD to give genetic material samples through a mouth swab to be able to compare genes. She is hoping her research will lead to an earlier diagnosis (before the age of two), earlier intervention and development of specific pharmaceuticals.

“The incidence of autism in the last three decades has increased dramatically,” she said. In 1977, only one in 2,500 people were diagnosed with ASD, while in 2009 one in 106 people were diagnosed. Of those being diagnosed, males are four times as likely as females to have ASD.

Left: From left, Jonathan Weiss, Adrienne Perry, James Bebko, Dorota Crawford, Jennifer Steeves, Maz Fallah, Louise Hartley, director of the 91��ɫ Psychology Clinic, and Tania Xerri, director of the Health Leadership & Learning Network

Psychology Professor Kari Hoffman told the audience about her work with social and emotional processing, the destination points for processing and the routes taken, which may be different in people with ASD than in a typical person.

School of Kinesiology & Health Science Professor Maz Fallah is interested in what things people with ASD pay attention to that may differ from others, what is the reason for that and what interventions could help. People who have an ASD have a persistent preoccupation with parts. “They cannot see the forest for the trees,” says Fallah, and that might have to do with an object-based attention deficit, for instance.

As psychology Professor Jennifer Steeves says, “There’s a lot we take for granted when we look around the room, but there’s a lot of computations that are taking place in the brain.”

This plays into what psychology Professor James Bebko is researching. Children with ASD don’t seem to be able to combine visual and auditory cues into a single unit, which is needed to assess emotion when watching and listening to someone talking. Their sensory systems seem largely intact, he said, so it may be that the problem lies in the processing or the transitional skills needed before the processing occurs.

What psychology Professor Adrienne Perry is looking into is the effectiveness of Intensive Behavioural Intervention (IBI), the program of choice for treating children with ASD. But Perry says the results in the field are variable compared to those in a controlled situation and she wants to know why. She is looking at the predictors of how well IBI works, such as age, IQ and severity of autism, as well as parent involvement.

“It’s great to see that research is going to look at family stress and at the IBI. We really struggle in the community to know what to do,” said Penny Diamantopoulos, a case manager with the child and family team of the (Central CCAC).

Dawn Ullman, also a case manager at Central CCAC, says she hopes the alliance does some follow up with the community in the next year or so. She would like to know what the results are of some of the research the professors highlighted. “I really want to know the bottom line” as the person working with the families.

For more information, visit the 91��ɫ Autism Research Alliance website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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"If a child is bullied at home by his or her parents or siblings, they’re going to learn the patterns they need to learn about the use of power and aggression in relationships," says Debra Pepler [Distinguished Research Professor in psychology at 91��ɫ’s LaMarsh Centre for Child & Youth Research].

These "children who are morally disengaged tend to think that the other child is just deserving of it, that they’re not human. They really disregard that child’s basic rights."

Pepler, who works at 91��ɫ [Faculty of Health] and the in Toronto, co-founded the Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence Network.

She says that for most kids, bullying or being bullied are minor problems that pass with time. But 10 to 15 per cent require extra support, and chronic bullies need help from mental health experts.

Pepler found that "85 per cent of the time, we saw bullying in the schoolyard or in the classroom, other children are there, and they form the audience for bullying and they reinforce the child who is bullying."

Her findings show that chronic bullies are more likely to skip school, abuse substances, sexually harass others, use violence in romantic relationships and eventually get into crime.

"They don’t have that voice inside that says, ‘Is this a good idea, should I do this?’ They’re really willing to go along to keep their friends, to keep their status, and do all sorts of negative things when they’re exposed to peer pressure. If we wanted to identify and help those children who are going to cost society the most in terms of criminal behaviour . . . we would be looking at the children who are involved in high rates of bullying."

These kids "probably need mental health services, (and) they and their families need a lot of support around how to develop the social-emotional capacity for healthy relationships." Schools need to keep track of every occurrence of bullying and focus their resources on the chronic bullies, she says.

Combating the stigma against reporting bullying to adults requires re-educating both children and adults, Pepler says.

"Children have a responsibility to tell when it’s happening, either to (teachers) or to someone else, because it violates a child’s rights, to be bullied. A child who is bullied isn’t safe, and similarly a child who bullies others is really in need of help."

This approach also helps combat cyberbullying because "the children who are cyberbullying are the children who traditionally bully," Pepler says.

She says teaching math and literacy is different from teaching kids how to interact positively. "Two plus two always equals four, and Cat on the Mat always looks the same, but social-emotional development is hugely complex," she says.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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91��ɫ Distinguished Research Professor in psychology, Debra Pepler, a co-director and member of 91��ɫ’s , said people don’t understand the level of the problem. “Canadians see ourselves as nice...(but) our children are not doing well.”

Crucial to preventing youth bullying and violence is for parents and other adults to show and teach healthy relationships, said Pepler. “Parents need to help kids think critically about their behaviour and how to treat people respectfully.”

If Canadian children are to do well despite all the media and societal exposure to violence and aggression, then they require a lot of guidance and exemplary behaviour from adults, she added. “What children observe is far more important than what they’re rewarded and punished for. We need to be much more mindful of what we teach them through our own behaviour as we get excited over hockey and ultimate fight clubs when they hear us say ‘kill them’.”

Pepler is also a member of the LaMarsh Centre for Research on Violence and Conflict Resolution at 91��ɫ. The complete article is .

By Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Why does this inaction surprise and shock us? After all, it happens to about 10 per cent of children every day at school. About 30 per cent of students are involved as witnesses or as fellow aggressors. Peers, teachers and other adults rarely intervene to help a child who is being victimized – they either fail to recognize the problem or they turn a blind eye.

For Yusuf Hizel, the poor man on the subway, this was a terrible, random act. For children who are bullied at school, it is sanctioned violence. They know who is going to bully them, when it is going to happen and where it is going to happen. They experience the equivalent of a mugging every day.

Bullying is a significant social problem. More than 1,100,000 school-aged Canadian children are victimized by bullying at least once a week, and more than 550,000 school-aged children report bullying others at least once a week. Bullying isn’t a normal or expected part of childhood. It is a hurtful and aggressive act with lasting consequences.

Being bullied can lead to physical and mental health problems – and in extreme cases, suicide. At its core, bullying is a relationship problem. It is about an imbalance of power with repeated aggression, with harm as its intent. It takes many forms – social, verbal, physical, cyber. This is not a rite of passage.

Pepler's research has changed the way we think about bullying, aggression and other forms of violence, especially among marginalized and alienated young people. She has has edited four volumes in the past four years on understanding and addressing children’s aggression, bullying, and victimization. Pepler is a member of the LaMarsh Centre for Research on Violence and Conflict Resolution and , a Web site that provides bullying resources for children, educators and parents.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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