Gina A. Cook, Ph.D.; Sr. Research Associate

Dr. Cook is currently involved as a Senior Research Associate on several grants promoting language and literacy. She has also been working on a project to develop a parenting measure. The PICCOLO measure is an easy to use measure of parenting skills developed for use by home visitors and researchers. 

Dr. Cook has worked at Utah State University for the past fourteen years for the Early Head Start (EHS) research project as well as the Early Intervention Research Center.  She is a Head Start teaching coach and an Early Intervention home visitor trainer on projects that are designed to increase adult-child language interactions and support child self regulation. Currently she is Co-PI and Project Manager, of an Early Head Start secondary analysis study which is exploring predictors and outcomes related to parenting types based on a person-centered approach. She has also been the Co-PI on a project that examined very low birth weight children's academic and self regulation skills at school entry and explored the influence of early mother-infant interaction on these children's developing skills. Dr. Cook was the Data Management Coordinator for a project that developed a measure to be used by Early Head Start home visitors to evaluate parent-child interactions (PICCOLO). As part of these projects, she has trained Head Start teachers and home visitors, assisted in the development of coding schemes to be used to assess parent-child interactions, supervised coding teams, supervised the data entry, cleanup, labeling, and archiving of data, collected data, analyzed data, and assisted in grant and report writing.  She has collaborated on writing for dissemination, preparing presentations for research conferences, and manuscripts for publication. As the project manager of several studies she has been responsible for hiring, supervising, and training data collectors and choosing instruments for these studies. She has also assisted in the preparation and development of new curriculum and measurement tools.

Her particular interests include the development of social competence and pre-literacy skills, both critical components of school success. She is also interested in understanding longitudinal developmental processes and supportive environments, at homes and in childcare centers and preschools, which lead to later academic and life success.She has been involved in the Early Head Start Research Consortium for the past twelve years.

Dr. Cook recieved her Ph.D. in Family and Human Development from Utah State University, with an emphasis on infancy and early child development.

Roles at the CPD

• Main Profile
• Sr. Research Associate for project Parenting Interactions with Children: Checklist of Observations Linked to Outcomes (PICCOLO)
• Sr. Research Associate for project Promoting Effective Engagement, Communication, and Self-regulation with English language learners (PEECSE)
• Sr. Research Associate for project Using Technology for Emergent Literacy and Language (UTELL): Phase Two/Evaluation