Paid NIH child development study seeks 6 and 12 month olds -- DC in-home appointments

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I participated. They don't give results (so surprised at the "results" above) though you may pick up an informal assesment as you go though it.

Correct--perhaps I should clarify. They don't give you any official results, but if you ask, they'll give you informal results that are very general. At least that's what they did for us.

[Anonymous]

Bumping again as more testimonials keep coming in! Westat still needs new participants, so if you haven't signed up before and your child is now in the age range please consider doing it! It's fun, you help childhood research, your child gets a book and earns $25. Anyway, on to the testimonial:

Thank you. My husband and I really enjoy the appointment. We are interested in future participation once our son is eligible for an older group. We look forward to working with you again.

Thanks!
CZ

[Anonymous]

Chiming in again to add another testimonial. We still need a few more to sign up, and moms and kids alike seem to enjoy them, so please consider signing up if you read this!

"[name redacted] and I enjoyed participating in the Bayley Study yesterday. We would be happy to participate again in future rounds.

Thanks,
NF"

As a reminder, here is the link where you can sign up. And if you have any questions feel free to post them here and I will answer when I can.

http://www.westat.com/about_us/research_participation_bayley.cfm

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chiming in again to add another testimonial. We still need a few more to sign up, and moms and kids alike seem to enjoy them, so please consider signing up if you read this!

"[name redacted] and I enjoyed participating in the Bayley Study yesterday. We would be happy to participate again in future rounds.

Thanks,
NF"

As a reminder, here is the link where you can sign up. And if you have any questions feel free to post them here and I will answer when I can.

http://www.westat.com/about_us/research_participation_bayley.cfm

We participated a few months ago in the earlier age bracket. In a month and a half DD will be 11 mo. Will you still need babies then? We'd be glad to help again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chiming in again to add another testimonial. We still need a few more to sign up, and moms and kids alike seem to enjoy them, so please consider signing up if you read this!

"[name redacted] and I enjoyed participating in the Bayley Study yesterday. We would be happy to participate again in future rounds.

Thanks,
NF"

As a reminder, here is the link where you can sign up. And if you have any questions feel free to post them here and I will answer when I can.

http://www.westat.com/about_us/research_participation_bayley.cfm

We participated a few months ago in the earlier age bracket. In a month and a half DD will be 11 mo. Will you still need babies then? We'd be glad to help again.

Sorry for the delayed response! Yes, it's currently likely we will still need participants at that time, and you're welcome to participate in the study twice. Once your child qualifies into the older group, please sign up or email [e-mail] to let them know you're interested in participating again.

Thanks for your support!

[Anonymous]

We still need more moms and dads who'd like to learn more about their baby! Here's another recent testimonial.

"I loved being a part of this! It was a great experience. Thank you."

We're also opening up the study for 2 and 3 year olds soon, so please feel free to let us know if you're interested in that age group too! If you sign up now, we'll contact you as soon as we start those groups.

[Anonymous]

Bump for the weekend DCUrban Mom's and Dads! Please help support childhood research! It's easy and fun!

[Anonymous]

My DD is 14 months. She is an only child and we have a nanny, so I would love to know if she's on-target with her development. Is she too far outside the targeted age ranges?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD is 14 months. She is an only child and we have a nanny, so I would love to know if she's on-target with her development. Is she too far outside the targeted age ranges?

Good question! At this time we're only testing 5-7 months, 11-13 months, 23-25 months, and 35-37 months. HOWEVER, we may ultimately add 17-19 months into our schedule, so please feel free to sign up, and we can keep you in our database and contact you when your DD is in an age range that we are testing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD is 14 months. She is an only child and we have a nanny, so I would love to know if she's on-target with her development. Is she too far outside the targeted age ranges?

I'm not affiliated with the study, but just wanted to let you know that getting a sense of your child's development is a perk of participating, not the purpose. The purpose is your child will be helping test a test that will be used in other studies. That's why there are specific age ranges.

Hope you get to participate at some point, it was neat

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I also participated in this study. (Full disclosure, I'm also an employee at Westat, but employees were able to participate this time because we don't need a representative sample). Just wrote up my thoughts and I thought I'd share them with more details for anybody who's interested:

I found the experience to be pretty fun. Our daughter took the study for 6 month olds. A nice interviewer named Noura come over to our house on Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago, and she was there for about 45 mins. All she did is give our daughter a few basic toys (blocks and hoops) to play with and see how she interacted with them. Then she also saw how well she sat up, responded to her name (and a few other words like "no"), and generally moved around. At the end, she gave us results in 3 categories (our daughter was reportedly average for speech, high average for motor control, and above average for cognitive in her age group ). She sat in her high chair almost the whole time (other than the sitting test) and seemed to like playing with the toys from our interviewer. I assume it might be slightly different for 1 year olds, but the general process is probably the same.

Hey Westat, stop f'in giving "results" for this study by having research analysts giving data about speech, motor skills, cognitions. Your analysts aren't trained OTs, PT, ST's etc. They are NOT qualified to give these kinds of results, e.g.:
http://la.linkedin.com/pub/noura-insolera/49/22/103

Parents with kids with actual delays could be given a false sense of security. Yes, participating in research is important, however, you a-holes should be reported to the IRB. I hope you lose your contract. Stop trolling this board or I will.

[Anonymous]

BTW, Daniel Goldberg, "Director of Digital Stratetgy" on this site it's called sock puppeting when you post multiple messages as if you were a different poster in each case. We know these "parent testimonials" are coming from employees of Westat not real DCUM users.

DCUM go to UMD to participate in research with researchers who actually understand protection of human subjects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hey Westat, stop f'in giving "results" for this study by having research analysts giving data about speech, motor skills, cognitions. Your analysts aren't trained OTs, PT, ST's etc. They are NOT qualified to give these kinds of results, e.g.:
http://la.linkedin.com/pub/noura-insolera/49/22/103

Parents with kids with actual delays could be given a false sense of security. Yes, participating in research is important, however, you a-holes should be reported to the IRB. I hope you lose your contract. Stop trolling this board or I will.

Umm, as multiple people have said, they don't provide "results", and Westat doesn't say they do. Honestly, I'd have loved to had something but that's not the purpose of participating. The one review mentioned results, but that was clearly just a general impression given because the parents asked.

[Anonymous]

Seriously. Why all the hate? My DS participated a few months ago. We also use Chadis and we talk to our doctor with any concerns. We were happy to help Westat as it will hopefully benefit more children in the future. To the extent we were able to glean some details from the appointment, great, but that wasn't the point and Westat never made any representations that it was.

People on DCUM really need to chill out.

[AFWestat]

Anonymous wrote:I also participated in this study. (Full disclosure, I'm also an employee at Westat, but employees were able to participate this time because we don't need a representative sample). Just wrote up my thoughts and I thought I'd share them with more details for anybody who's interested:

I found the experience to be pretty fun. Our daughter took the study for 6 month olds. A nice interviewer named Noura come over to our house on Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago, and she was there for about 45 mins. All she did is give our daughter a few basic toys (blocks and hoops) to play with and see how she interacted with them. Then she also saw how well she sat up, responded to her name (and a few other words like "no"), and generally moved around. At the end, she gave us results in 3 categories (our daughter was reportedly average for speech, high average for motor control, and above average for cognitive in her age group ). She sat in her high chair almost the whole time (other than the sitting test) and seemed to like playing with the toys from our interviewer. I assume it might be slightly different for 1 year olds, but the general process is probably the same.

Anonymous wrote:Hey Westat, stop f'in giving "results" for this study by having research analysts giving data about speech, motor skills, cognitions...

Hi there, I made an account just to clarify some confusion and reply to recent posts here. I'm both the employee who posted my experience above and some of the subsequent testimonials we received from parents. Just to address this above point first, I'm sorry if I caused confusion by implying that we were sharing any scientific results with parents. Our interviewers do not do this. I only received informal learnings at my own daughter's appointment that I thought I would share, because I found it an interesting experience altogether.

Anonymous wrote:BTW, Daniel Goldberg, "Director of Digital Stratetgy" on this site it's called sock puppeting when you post multiple messages as if you were a different poster in each case. We know these "parent testimonials" are coming from employees of Westat not real DCUM users.

Daniel Goldberg actually left Westat, so I took over his position in recruiting new moms, dads and babies to help us out with the study. The occasional testimonials I posted above (other than my own testimonial from when my daughter took the assessment that is quoted here) were collected via email from participants. I do not know whether these parents were DCUM users or not, but they did genuinely participate in the study and enjoyed it enough to send us a message so I thought I would share. I thought it was clear which testimonials fit in this category from the language I used in my posts and was just using the quick reply out of convenience. I have no knowledge whatsoever about the identity of other users who have shared their positive experiences here directly. Regardless, I apologize for not registering an account earlier to let you know which posts were clearly from me. I had no intent to deceive anyone about my affiliations and will not use the quick reply while not logged in moving forward.

Anonymous wrote:We were happy to help Westat as it will hopefully benefit more children in the future...

Thanks for your support!