Margherita Malanchini

Research Focus

Margherita Malanchini is a developmental psychologist at Queen Mary University of London, where she directs the Cognition, Development, and Education (CoDE) research laboratory. Her research seeks to understand why children and adolescents differ so widely in their learning, behaviour, and cognition by investigating psycho-social and biological pathways. Margherita collaborates closely with developmental, genetically-informative cohort studies in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States. She also works in partnership with non-profit organizations to evaluate the effectiveness of educational interventions. The goal of Margherita’s research is to inform developmental interventions, ultimately allowing children and adolescents to thrive.

My plans for the fellowship period

Neurodevelopmental disorders and disruptive behaviour disorders represent significant health concerns, affecting approximately 15% and 8% of children and adolescents, respectively, across the world. Neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g., autism spectrum disorder, specific learning disorders) are characterized by challenges in cognition, communication, adaptive behaviour, and psychomotor skills, while disruptive behaviour disorders (e.g., conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder) are typified by underlying features of impulsivity, aggressiveness, and pathological rule-breaking. Starting from childhood, both categories of disorders are associated with educational challenges, leading to important life-course cascading effects.

Despite sharing several features, such as their developmental onset, their partly overlapping cognitive and affective profiles, and clinical observations of their co-occurrence, the overlap between neurodevelopmental and disruptive behavior disorders is critically under-researched.

During this fellowship, I plan to bridge this gap in our knowledge by investigating the combined impact of neurodevelopmental and disruptive behaviour disorders on learning and child development, considering both genetic and environmental risk and their interplay. My goal is to pinpoint protective environments that can narrow the educational and developmental gap between children with different neurodivergent and behavioural profiles, a gap that is likely amplified when multiple disorders co-occur.

How will my work change children’s and youth’s lives?

During this fellwoship, I aim to generate new knowledge to bridge the educational gap between children with different neurodivergent and behavioural profiles. My goal is to provide a paradigm shift in the way we think about developmental disorders and about the environments that enable youths with neurodevelopmental and disruptive behaviour disorders to thrive.

My approach moves away from thinking about developmental disorders as separate entities and toward a more inclusive approach that recognizes commonalities between disorders and views them as collections of symptoms differing only in degree from typical development. By studying commonalities across multiple disorders and their combined impact on learning outcomes I will generate new knowledge that will benefit children, their educators, and their families.

Ultimately, during this fellowship, I aim to pinpoint novel intervention targets that consider genetic disposition by capturing the dynamic interplay between genetic and environmental risk. A major challenge in early interventions has been the sole focus on isolated environmental factors, overlooking evidence that environments operate in combination with genetic disposition. This project addresses this issue by exploring how genetic and environmental factors combine to differentially shape educational outcomes for children across a wide range of neurodivergent and behavioural profiles.