Ph.D.  -  1994 University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Title:    "Origins of Children's Learned Helpless and Mastery Oriented Achievement Patterns in the Family"

M.A.   -  1987 University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Major: Clinical Psychology
Minor: Developmental/Educational Psychology

B.S.   -  1982 University of California, Los Angeles
Major: Psychobiology

Moms Helping Kids (MHK): An Educational Program to Help Children Cope with the Effects of Domestic Violence

The goal is to develop and evaluate a parenting intervention to help children who have witnessed their mothers being abused.  The curriculum addresses post-traumatic stress symptoms, depression, low self-esteem, poor anger control and discipline problems.  Extensive evaluation using pre-treatment, post-treatment and 12-week post-treatment home assessments, using child and mother self-report measures, as well as videotaped observations of mother-child interactions, is being completed.  The program has been translated and modified for Spanish-speaking Mexican and Mexican-American families, and has been run at 6 community agencies in San Diego County.

The program has been funded by the following grants:
Alliance Healthcare Foundation Grant ($88,362), 1998 - 2001.
College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts Grant for Faculty Development and Support ($3,000), San Diego State University, 2000 - 2001.
Grant-In-Aid ($7,500), San Diego State University, 1999 – 2000.
College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts Grant for Faculty Development and Support ($3,000), San Diego State University, 1999 - 2000.
Faculty Development Grant ($2,100), San Diego State University, 1999 - 2000
College of Sciences Grant for Faculty Development and Support, San Diego State University ($1,000), 1998 - 1999.
National Institute of Mental Health B/START (1 R03 H54708-01) grant ($22,744), 1995 to 1996.
College of Sciences Grant for Faculty Development and Support ($1,500), San Diego State University, 1995 - 1996.
 

To better adapt the MHK domestic violence program and assessment tools for Spanish-speaking Mexican and Mexican-American families, researchers and clinicians at the Instituto Nacional de Psiquiatría (National Institute of Psychiatry) in Mexico City are collaborating on implementing the MHK program in Mexico.  Cross-cultural differences in the effectiveness of the intervention are being examined.  Each questionnaire has been translated and back-translated, and several studies are evaluating the reliability and validity of these measures.

Papers in Progress:

Hokoda, A. & Angeles, M.  (2001).  The Cultural Adaptation of Questionnaires Assessing Parenting and Family
Violence in Mexican and Mexican-American Families.

Hokoda, A., Celaya, P., & Gutierrez, N.  (2001).  Examining the Psychometric Properties of Questionnaires Assessing Depression and Learned Helplessness in Mexican and Mexican Immigrant Children Exposed to Domestic Violence.

Hokoda, A., Angeles, M., Wakabayashi, Y., Ruiz, S., & Hazen, A.  (2001).  Parenting, Family Functioning and Acculturative Stress in Mexican Immigrant Women and Children Exposed to Domestic Violence.

This part of the research program has been funded primarily by the following grants:
National Institute of Health, Minority International Research Training (MIRT)-Fogarty grants ($25,000), 2000 - 2001.
College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts Grant for Faculty Development and Support ($3,500), San Diego State University, 2001.
Faculty Development Grant ($5,000), San Diego State University, 2001.
International Programs Council Grant ($1,000), San Diego State University, 2000 - 2001.
International Programs Council Grant ($2,000), San Diego State University, 1999 – 2000.
College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts Grant for Faculty Development and Support, San Diego State University ($3,000), 1999 - 2000.
 

A school-based intervention run by the YWCA has served over 20,000 students in San Diego Unified and Sweetwater Union School Districts.  The program is comprised of lessons, exercises and role-plays which teach adolescents the course and causes of relationship violence, as well as suggestions for dealing with violence.   An innovative aspect of the program is that it uses peer education.  Laura Paciorek, a SDSU graduate student, and I are conducting an evaluation of the program which includes 3 assessment sessions, and a treatment and control group.  Several self-report measures were developed which assess beliefs such as, knowledge about dating violence, attitudes about emotional, physical and sexual violence, and attitudes about dealing with violence in relationships.

Papers in Progress:

Paciorek, L. & Hokoda, A. (2001).  An Evaluation of a School-Based Prevention Program for Teen Relationship Violence.

Paciorek, L. Hokoda, A., & Ramos, L.  (2001).  The Assessment of Teen Relationship Violence in Spanish-Speaking Mexican and Mexican-American Adolescents.

Funding for this project:
Grant-In-Aid ($8,000), San Diego State University, 2000 - 2001.

Evaluation of the San Diego Choice Program

As a faculty fellow for the June Burnett Institute, Dr. Marcie Bober, Dr. Cristina Gomez and I are evaluating the Choice Program, an intensive family-oriented community-based program for youth at-risk for antisocial and conduct problems.  The study will examine the effectiveness of the parent education program focusing on outcome measures assessing family cohesion and warmth, discipline and teaching strategies, and parental stress.  Particular attention will be on identifying cultural factors, such as, acculturative stress, which may influence the effectiveness of the intervention for Latino families.  In addition, the study will evaluate the academic experience in which students are engaged, including the process by which particular settings are selected, the rigor of activities in which the youngsters are engaged, and the selection and adaptation of instructional strategies to ensure learning needs are met.