The CALMER Lab and Child Study Center at Virginia Tech are currently recruiting children and adolescents of all ages 4-15 years, except for 4-, 5-, 7-, and 8-year-old boys and 5- and 6-year-old girls, as we have already hit our target sample size for those age groups. Participants in the study will come into the CALMER Lab located on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, VA for two in-person visits, approximately one year apart (visit lengths = ~2.5 hours), and parents will complete daily ratings for a two week period following the visits. During these in person visits, your children will complete various activities including measures of cognitive and academic functioning, emotional and behavioral tasks (e.g., completing puzzles, watching video clips and trying to identify how the characters are feeling), and an emotion discussion and free play task with you. During some of these tasks, your child will be hooked up to three electrodes to measure their heart rate activity and you will also have a heart rate monitor for the parent-child discussion task. These heart rate monitors do not hurt at all and the activities can be completed without the heart rate monitor if you are not comfortable with this.
You will complete an interview about your children's social, emotional, and behavioral functioning, a computer task, and multiple questionnaires on your children’s social, emotional, behavioral, and medical functioning, as well as your own stress, emotions, and parenting practices. Families will be provided with feedback and a report detailing the findings of the social, emotional, and academic evaluation following the visits (30 minute feedback visits) and be given referral information, should you wish to seek services based on these findings. Your family will be compensated up to $200 for completing all parts of the study, and your child will be given a small prize at each visit.
For more information, visit the Child Study Center and CALMER Lab websites.