Brenda J. Salley, PhD

Professional Background

Dr. Brenda Salley is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Kansas Medical Center and Children’s Mercy Hospital/University of Kansas City-Missouri. She is the director of the Baby Lab at KUMC and Children’s Mercy.

Dr. Salley completed her doctoral training in clinical psychology at Virginia Tech and completed completing a clinical internship at Brown University with a focus on early child development and neurodevelopmental disabilities. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in translational research for intellectual and developmental disabilities at the University of Kansas Life Schiefelbusch Span Institute.

Dr. Salley’s clinical expertise centers on the evaluation of very young children for developmental and social-emotional concerns, including autism spectrum disorder and infant/early childhood mental health concerns.

• BS, Psychology, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN
• MA, Clinical Psychology, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN
• PhD, Clinical Psychology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA
• Other, Clinical Child Psychology/Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities, Brown University, Warren Alpert Medical School, Providence, RI
• Other, Autism/Neurodevelopmental Disabilities, University of Kansas Medical Center, Center for Child Health and Development, Kansas City, KS
• Post Doctoral Fellowship, NRSA T32 Translational Research in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, University of Kansas, Schiefelbusch Life Span Institute, Lawrence, KS

• Licensed Psychologist, Kansas Behavioral Sciences Regulatory Board
• Licensed Psychologist, Missouri State Committee of Psychologists

• Clinical Child and Adolescent Practice Special Interest Group (SIG) of the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology (SCCAP), APA Div 53, Member, 2021 - Present

Research

Overview

Dr. Salley’s is a clinical psychologist with expertise in infant/toddler neurodevelopment and social-emotional health. Dr. Salley’s research focuses on early relational health, with the goal of fostering strong, positive and nurturing caregiver-child relationships, which benefit child development and health, as well as the health of caregivers. Her work broadly aims to develop and evaluate equitable preventative intervention approaches that reach underserved and under resourced children and families to reduce long-term health disparities. One primary line of research focuses on evaluating interventions that can be deployed within the community and primary care settings to promote positive early parent-child relationships for infants and toddlers. A second line of research focuses on improving early identification by using a basic science approach to understand early language and social-emotional development.

• Talk With Me Baby, NIH: Data Coordinating and Operations Center (DCOC) for the IDeA States Pediatric Clinical Trials Network, Other
• Validation of an outcome measure of early social-communication for young children with ASD, R01: NIH: National Institutes of Child Health and Development, Co-I