Frequently Asked Questions
How do you find out about resilience in this project?
We complete several tasks and surveys with preschoolers, their adult caregivers, and their teachers. Their answers provide us with insight into how these children and parents solve problems and cope with stress. By following how these families are adjusting over time, we can show what factors are important and necessary for families exposed to adversity to recover. We hope to use the information we learn from this research to develop programs that supports and promotes the development of resiliency and adaptive behavior in young children.
How long do the tasks and survey take?
Parents and children usually complete the session in 3 hours – however, we take lots of breaks and can split up the survey into multiple appointments if that works best for families.
Who can be in the project?
We need children with the following criteria:
- Between 3 to 5 years old
- In Jackson County
- No diagnoses of mental retardation or autism
- Native English speakers only
- Have lived with an adult caregiver for at least one month
I have a child that is about to turn three years old, can I be in the study?
Unfortunately at this time, only children ages 3 to 5 in Jackson County are eligible. However, once the child turns three, he or she will be eligible for the study. In the future, we hope to be able to include even younger children as well.
I have multiple children. Can someone watch my other children who are not participating in the project while I complete the survey?
Yes! We have trained staff on-site to help with child care while you are working on the parent portion of the survey.
Aren't some of these questions pretty personal?
Yes, we do ask personal questions. However, your answers are completely confidential and private. All answers go into our computer program and are not associated with anyone's name. The only time our computer lets us know about anyone's answers is if they indicate they are being harmed or in danger of harming themselves or someone else.
Are these questions stressful?
Some parents may worry that these questions will be stressful or overwhelming. These questions have been used in other research projects with minimal risk and, in our experience, most parents handle these questions well.
The well-being of the families in our study is our top priority and we go to significant effort to make sure that all participants have a pleasant experience. To make sure that children and their caregivers are okay after answering survey questions, we do lots of following up and checking in with families. Also, all of our staff who administer the surveys are child psychology graduate students closely supervised by Dr. Jackson, a licensed, board-certified clinician with many years of experience working with children who have been abused or neglected.