I am a teaching associate professor in the Department of Psychology and College of General Studies. I received a B.Sc. in Cognitive Science from the University of Osnabrueck, Germany, and my PhD in developmental psychology from Duke University. I have spent 3 years working at the Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Center for Autism Services, Science, and Innovation.
At the University of Pittsburgh, I founded the Online Babylab conducting remote research with families and their children and taught several core courses in the psychology major. I have been recipient of a post-doctoral fellowship by the Autism Science Foundation and been awarded the Silfka/Ritvo Innovation in Autism Research Award.
Courses Taught at Pitt
- PSY 0037 – Research Methods Lab
- PSY 0310 – Developmental Psychology
- PSY 1315 – Infancy (undergraduate level)
- PSY 1321 – Autism Spectrum Disorders
- PSY 1973/1975 – Honors Thesis Seminar
- PSY 2315 – Infancy (graduate level)
- PSY 2325 – Social Development (graduate level)
Education & Training
- PhD, Developmental Psychology - Duke University
- B.Sc., Cognitive Science - University of Osnabrueck, Germany
Representative Publications
Smith, D.K., Ran, A., Libertus, K., (2022). Influences of Adult Gender and Parenthood on Adult-Child Interaction Style. Children, 9 (12), 1804. https://doi.org/10.3390/children9121804
Smith, D.K., Libertus, K., (2022). The Early Motor Questionnaire revisited: Starting points, standardized scores, and stability. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 223. Doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105492
Libertus, K., (2020). Motor development in infants and children. In K. Cohen Kadosh (Ed.) Oxford Handbook of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.
Libertus, K., Smith., D.K., (2020). Milestones: Physical development from Birth to Age 3. In Benson, J.B. (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Infant and Early Childhood Development (2nd edition), vol. 2, pp 339-346.
Libertus, K., & Violi, D. A. (2016). Sit to talk: Relation between motor skills and language development in infancy. Frontiers in Psychology, 7. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00475
Libertus, K., Joh, A., Needham, A., (2015). Motor training at three months affects object exploration 12 months later. Developmental Science. doi:10.1111/desc.12370