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Associate Professor Annette Henderson

Outgoing President

Associate Professor Annette Henderson has been the President of AHDA since 2019 and an AHDA member since 2011 when she attended the 17th AHDA conference hosted by Otago University in Dunedin, New Zealand. Being new to New Zealand, Annette appreciated how warm and welcoming the conference was, despite it being in the middle of Winder in Dunedin! Annette has valued her involvement in AHDA ever sense. The most rewarding AHDA moment for me thus far has been opening the second Virtual Conference in 2020. 2020 was a year filled with so many challenges for everyone across the globe, coming together with other developmental colleagues across Australasia to hear about ongoing research for a couple of days was a welcome change from the pressures of the pandemic. Annette has enjoyed being President of AHDA and looks forward to continuing to support the growth of this wonderful association in the years to come.

At the University of Auckland, Associate Professor Henderson is the Director of the Early Learning Lab (i.e., ELLA, https://www.earlylearning.ac.nz/ ) in the School of Psychology. Her research spans several topics relating to social, cognitive and language development in early childhood (0-4 years). Current research projects examine how and what children learn from their social world with a particular focus on the development of socio-cultural competence in early childhood. In human societies, this typically involves learning how to coordinate ones actions with others in non-linguistic and linguistic collaborative activities. One goal of her research programme is to identify the factors that will promote the development of children’s socio-cultural competence thereby enhancing children’s chances of having the best start to life in their social world.