McKinney Lab
About the Team
Broadly, the McKinney Lab aims to advance equitable clinical outcomes and improve the lives of people with neurodevelopmental disabilities using multiple complementary strategies. At the individual and family level, the lab is developing and refining evidence-based treatments for individuals with neurodevelopmental disabilities historically excluded from clinical research, such as those with autism and co-occurring intellectual disability and individuals with Prader-Willi Syndrome. This work aims to equip patients and families with practical strategies to manage irritability, anxiety, aggression and other challenging behaviors while improving long-term psychosocial outcomes. At a broader level, the lab aims to identify key social-environmental drivers of phenotypic differences and understand how we can leverage these to improve patient outcomes, with the long-term goal of developing effective institutional, community and public policy solutions.
The lab’s work is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) as well as the Foundation for Prader-Willi Research. Current projects aim to adapt the Regulating Together curriculum, a group therapy for autistic youth experiencing emotion dysregulation, for new cohorts of children with autism and co-occurring intellectual disability and teenagers with Prader-Willi Syndrome.
Active Projects
Please click on the links to learn more about our actively enrolling studies.
Prader Willi Syndrome (PWS): A Group Behavioral Therapy for Emotional Dysregulation
Leader
Walker McKinney, PhD is a clinical psychologist at Children’s Mercy in the Division of Developmental and Behavioral Health and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine. He completed his clinical residency at Nationwide Children's Hospital and his research fellowship at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Dr. McKinney's research focuses on treatment development for individuals with neurodevelopmental disabilities. He is also interested in identifying social-environmental drivers of phenotypic differences in individuals with neurogenetic conditions such as Fragile X syndrome, Prader-Willi syndrome, and Angelman syndrome.