BSS (Psychology), BA (Honours), PhD Clinical Psychology

Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology

Program Convenor, Clinical Psychology Postgraduate Programs

Contact details for Dr Allison Waters

Research expertise

• Dr Waters research interests focus on improving our understanding of the underlying processes and determinants of childhood anxiety disorders.
• This includes a systematic research program on the cognitive, emotional and physiological processes that characterise anxious responding and how these processes develop in children
• Dr Waters also has a strong research interest in factors that contribute to gender differences in the prevalence of anxiety disorders in children, as well as in the assessment and treatment of childhood anxiety disorders
• She directs the "Take Action Program" which is a cognitive-behavioural treatment program for children with anxiety disorders which runs within the School of Psychology, Griffith University, Gold Coast campus

Current teaching areas

• Dr Waters is the convenor of a third year undergraduate course about abnormal psychology. This course provides an overview of the major mental disorders, their assessment and treatment.
• She also convenes an advanced postgraduate course on child and adolescent psychology and co-convenes an advanced postgraduate course on child and adult psychological assessment.

Publications

• Waters, A. M., Mogg, K., Bradley, B. P., and Pine, D. S. (2008). Attentional bias for emotional faces in children with generalised anxiety disorder. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 47(4), 435-442.
• Waters, A. M., Neumann, D. L., Henry, J., Craske, M. G., and Ornitz, E. M. (2008). Baseline and affective startle modulation by emotional faces in 4-8 year old high and low anxious children. Biological Psychology. 78(1), 10-19.
• Waters, A. M., Wharton, T. A., Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J., and Craske, M. G. (2008).Threat-based cognitive biases in anxious children: Comparison with non-anxious children before and after cognitive-behavioural treatment. Behaviour Research and Therapy. 46(3), 358-374.
• Waters, A. M., and Lipp, O. V. (2008). The influence of animal fear on attentional capture by fear-relevant animal stimuli in children. Behaviour Research and Therapy. 46(1), 114-121.
• Waters, A. M., Nitz, A. B., Craske, M. G., and Johnson, C. (2007). The effects of anxiety upon attention allocation to affective stimuli. Behaviour Research and Therapy. 45(4), 763-774.