Professor Margot Prior AO

B.Mus. BA. M.Sc. PhD. FASSA, FAPS

Professor

Contact details:

Prof Prior has been a lecturer, clinician, and researcher in the field of family and child development for more than 30 years, at Monash, LaTrobe and Melbourne Universities. She was until 2002 the Director of Psychology at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne.

She has written and/or edited seven books and has also published over 170 scientific papers and chapters in her various areas of expertise in child development and clinical psychology. She consults to many national and international agencies. Prof. Prior has been a Chief investigator in the 20 year, longitudinal study of Australian children 'The Australian Temperament Project'.

She was a Founder of the Victorian Parenting Centre, and the Learning Difficulties Centre at the Royal Children's Hospital. She also works in aboriginal mental health and in developing psychology in Vietnam.

Research Interests:

• Autism
• Learning difficulties
• Communication disorders
• Social inequalities in children's health and well-being

Professional Associations, Memberships & Awards:

• Order of Australia
• Patron, Autism Victoria
• Australian Psychological Society Award for Distinguished Contribution to Psychology
• Senior Australian of the year for Victoria 2006

Books:

Prior, M. (1996). Understanding Specific Learning Difficulties. Hove, Sussex: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Prior, M., Sanson, A., Smart, D., & Oberklaid, F. (2000). Pathways from infancy to adolescence - Australian Temperament Project 1983-2000. Australian Institute of Family Studies.

Prior, M (Ed) (2003) Learning and Behaviour Problems in Asperger Syndrome. New York, Guilford Press.

Richardson S & Prior M (2005) No Time To Lose : The Wellbeing of Australia's children. Melbourne University Publishing

Book Chapters:

Prior, M. & Ozonoff S. (2005). Psychological factors in autism. In F. Volkmar (Ed). Childhood Autism. Cambridge University Press. pp 64-108. (second edition)

Sanson, A. & Prior, M. (1998). Temperamental and behavioural precursors to Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Conduct Disorder, in H Quay & A Hogan (Eds). Handbook of Disruptive Behaviour Disorders, N.Y., Plenum Press.

Prior, M. (1999). Temperament and Coping, in E. Frydenberg (Ed). Learning to Cope: Developing as a Person in Complex Societies. Cambridge University Press, pp.22-33.

Refereed Journal Articles:

McGee R, Prior M, Williams S, Sanson A, and Smart D (2002) The long term significance of teacher-rated hyperactivity and reading ability in childhood: findings from two longitudinal studies. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 43, 7, 1004-1017.

Jorm, A., Prior, M., Sanson, A., Smart, D., Zhang, Y., & Easteal, S. (2003) Apolipoprotein E genotype and temperament: A longitudinal study from infancy to the late teens. Psychosomatic Medicine 65 : 662-664.

Villella S., and Prior, M. (2004) Arithmetic learning difficulties in children. Educational Psychology, (in press).

Barrett, S., Prior M., and Manjiviona J. (2004) Children on the Borderlands of Autism: differential Characteristics in social, imaginative, communicative, and repetitive behaviour domains. Autism : The International Journal of Research and Practice 8, 61-88.

Prior, M., Virasinghe, S. and Smart, D. (2005) Behavioural problems in Sri Lankan school Children: Association with socioeconomic status, age, gender, academic progress, ethnicity and religion. Social Psychology and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 40, 8, 654-662.

PhD Students under Supervision: