In 2006, Prof Smith retired as director of the university's former Children's Issues Centre, now known as the Centre for Research on Children and Families.
She is continuing her research at the university College of Education and also undertaking some postgraduate student supervision through the college.
Prof Smith recently received the Marion Langer Award at a symposium of the American association in Greenville, South Carolina.
The orthopsychiatric association supports collaborative research and emphasises prevention, seeking to foster mental health in family, school and community contexts.
The citation noted that the award had been presented to Prof Smith "for her research and advocacy to ensure that the voices of children are heard".
Prof Smith yesterday said she had always been interested, when she was centre director, in seeing issues from children's perspectives.
She had been somewhat surprised to gain the award, and had also been delighted that it recognised her advocacy for children, as well as her academic research.
"They obviously thought that the work we were doing was quite special."
The award had come as "quite an honour" for her, for the university and for the Otago children's centre.
The citation noted that as a centre director and an international scholar, Prof Smith had "worked both to transform studies of childhood and to diffuse the resulting knowledge within the academy itself and in teachers' lounges, television studios and the halls of government".
"Showing due respect for the dignity of both children themselves and the adults who care for them, Dr Smith has devoted much of her career to making schools and child care centres more humane.
"Exploring children's own values, attitudes and experience, she has made groundbreaking contributions to understanding of the nature and implications of such a child-centred perspective," the citation said.
Prof Smith was accompanied on her recent trip to the South Carolina symposium by her husband, Dr John Smith, a retired former principal lecturer at the college of education.
Prof Smith became the inaugural director of the children's centre in 1995 and was also elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand that year.
She received the McKenzie Award for innovative research in education in 1997 and was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2007.
She is the author of Understanding Children's Development and many other publications.
