Q. What is this study about? What are you trying to learn?
A. The purpose of this study is to learn how the brain develops in normal healthy children. The information collected will available to scientists in a confidential manner without names and other identifying information. It helps us to understand the causes of serious childhood conditions like psychosis, obsessive-compulsive disorder, epilepsy, autism, and mental retardation.
Q. Who’s funding this study?
A. The National Institutes of Health, the lead U.S. federal agency for biomedical research.
A. From Info USA, a company that supplies names, addresses, & phone numbers for scientific surveys. This company has helped us assure that we have a diverse population.
Q. Why do you need my address?
A. If you are eligible for this part of the study, we will be sending you other information about continuing to the next phase of our study.
Q. How old does a child have to be in order to be in the study?
A. Children must be between 0 and 18 years old. Some sites will be seeing children between 0 and 18 years old while other will be seeing only children between ages 4 ½ and 18.
Q. How long will the telephone screening take?
A. It should take about 10 minutes.
Q. Why didn’t my child qualify?
A. Decisions are based on specific requirements such as age, gender, braces, child’s height and weight just to name a few. Only one child per family can be included.
Q. What is the questionnaire called CBCL about? How long will it take to complete it?
A. The Child Behavioral Check List (CBCL) is about your child's feelings and behavior. It takes about 20-30 minutes to complete. You then send it back in the enclosed postage paid envelope. Once received by us, we will send you a gift certificate for participating in this phase of the study.
Q. If we move, will we still be in the study?
A. Yes, generally you would still be in our study. Please notify us if you move so we can stay in touch.
Q. Will I be able to stay with my child during the testing and MRI?
A. You will be able to stay with your child during the MRI. You may not be able to be in the room during some of the behavioral testing but you can remain close by.
Q. Why are you asking about dental braces?
A. If your child progresses to the phase of our study that involves an MRI, the metal in the braces interferes with the MRI. While it is safe to be scanned with braces and other metal objects such as dental fillings, they may cause distortion in the images.
Q. Where does the collected information go?
A. The collected information and brain images will be stored in a database in an anonymous form. This may eventually reside on a public website where researchers, clinicians and others can access it.
Q. How do you keep my family's information confidential?
A. Firstly, all documents at the clinic with identifying information (names, address, telephone number) are safely locked away and can only be accessed by the investigators or their assistants. Secondly, when information leaves our center, ID numbers instead of names are used. Any identifying information has been removed before it leaves the clinic.