Filicide, the killing of a child by a parent or a parental figure, is a heinous and incomprehensible crime. Professor Thea Brown, with her colleagues Associate Professor Danielle Tyson and Dr Paula Fernandez Arias from the Monash Deakin Filicide Research Hub shared between Monash and Deakin Universities, has been studying filicide for years, in the hope of uncovering common factors linked to filicide that could be included in future prevention initiatives. Her studies identified common social, familial, and personal circumstances that characterised many cases of filicide in Australia over the past decades.

Our world is facing new and frightening challenges, and political polarization has never been greater. Many see reasoned, respectful discourse as our only path to survival and progress, but attaining the skills and values it requires is not straightforward. Professor Deanna Kuhn of Columbia University has developed a discourse-based curriculum to help the next generation develop the values and the social and critical thinking skills they will need if they are to use tools of discourse to address the complex problems and challenges that await them.

The war in Ukraine has tested the resilience and unity of the European Union in unprecedented ways. As with some past European crises, EU member states have shown a willingness to unify and cooperate. However, unlike during other crises, this hasn’t resulted in strengthened EU regulatory or fiscal powers. In recent research, Professor Tanja Börzel at Freie Universität Berlin explores why this is the case.

Individuals with dyslexia encounter difficulties in learning to read, despite possessing a normal level of intelligence and having access to qualified teachers and educational materials. However, the causes of dyslexia remain disputed. One suggestion is that dyslexia may be related to stress, either experienced by the afflicted individual at a young age, or through inheriting stress-related biological changes from their parents. Dr John Kershner, a neuropsychologist at the University of Toronto, has conducted extensive research on this alternative hypothesis and provides compelling evidence to support this emerging concept.

India has seen impressive economic and institutional growth in recent years, but the country isn’t yet meeting its full potential. In a world that is increasingly volatile and uncertain, how can India overcome its challenges and ensure resilience into the future? In her recent work, Professor Uma Lele explores various ways that India can achieve this.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people across the globe changed the way they worked, to comply with social distancing measures. Many people worked from home, and attended meetings virtually using videoconferencing platforms. Dr Eva Straus, Dr Lars Uhlig, Professor Jana Kühnel, and Professor Christian Korunka at the University of Vienna recently carried out a diary-based study exploring the wellbeing, perceived productivity, and professional engagement of remote workers during the pandemic.

Before an infant can learn the link between a word and an object by following a pointing gesture, Professor Nancy Rader’s team has found that infants can learn this association through ‘show gestures’. Show gestures entail bringing an object towards the child and rotating it, while synchronizing the movements with speech. While the effect of show gestures decreases with age during childhood, Rader and her colleagues have found that non-verbal children on the autism spectrum are very sensitive to this information, performing as well in learning words as age-matched typically-developing children.