Xiaoxu Rong

Email: xrong8@wisc.edu

Biography

Xiaoxu Rong is a doctoral student in the Human Development area within the Department of Educational Psychology. She is interested how early adversity (e.g., poverty, maternal prenatal stress) plays a role in child brain development and cognitive ability development. Inspired by the experience of supporting children struggling with neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g. ADHD, autism), she hoped to learn more about the influences of early experiences on normal and abnormal brain development. In the long run, she aspired to get implications from research to help families build constructive rearing environments for children.

Education

MS, Clinical Rehabilitation Counseling
University of Wisconsin – Madison
Madison, WI

BS, Psychology
Central China Normal University
Wuhan, China

Research Interests

Xiaoxu is interested in studying children from prenatal stages through childhood and understanding key environmental factors playing a role in child brain development and cognitive ability development.

Working with children struggling with neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD and autism in multiple neuropsychological assessment settings, Xiaoxu started to get interested in the neural underpinnings of normal and abnormal child development. She worked as an Assistant Researcher at the Brain & Early Experiences (BEE) lab directed by Dr. Sarah Short and was impressed by the study of prenatal factors and brain development during infancy. She decided to dig deeper in this field and aspires to translate findings into implications for families and educators in a long run.