New Interviews with Team Members

Last summer we asked several staff members about their experiences working on the Spit for Science project, so that blog readers can learn more about what it's like to be involved in research and science. We thought it would be nice to hear from some of our other team members, including Cynthia Nguyen.

What are you taking in school? What year are you entering?

I'm entering my 4th year at the University of Toronto doing a major in health and disease and a double minor in sociology and psychology.

What made you apply to be a research assistant for Spit for Science?

I LOVE working with kids and believe that research is essential to further develop the advancements made in medical science today. It is very appealing to me that the Spit for Science project is looking for the relationship between genetics and the basis for different childhood behavioural disorders. That combined with the fact that I get to work with kids allowed me to combine the best of both worlds!

What is your favourite part of the job?

It has to be interacting with all the kids during the activities they get to participate in while doing the study. Especially seeing their faces when they have to spit.

Why are you interested in science?

I've always been interested in how things come to be or work ever since I was little. I used to think that lightning was someone from space taking a picture of us until I went to the library and realized that's not what actually happens. I must confess, I was a bit disappointed. Science just fascinates me and I enjoy learning about how our body works. Science is just cool!

What surprising thing have you learned about yourself while working on this project, or what new skill have you learned?

Over the past year I've really come out of my "shell" when it comes to interacting with others. Interacting with members of the public on a daily basis has really helped me improve and learn more communication skills. A "new" or improved skill that I have learned is time management! It's not easy to balance school and work but it's possible!

Milestone!

We are happy to announce that Spit for Science has reached a milestone - on Sunday May 16th we ran our 10,000th participant!

The special participant and his family allowed us to take pictures of this incredible moment to post on the blog - here's Owen with some of the Spit for Science staff as well as with his family.

Owen's parents had some great feedback about the experience:

"This certainly added some more excitement to our day! I've never seen Owen so excited to spit in a cup! We're happy that Owen could be the 10,000th child to participate in a study that could help so many children! Congratulations to everybody that has been involved!"

Updates and Feedback!

Believe it or not, we are up to 9741 participants. A big thank you to all the families who have taken part in our study. We will surely be celebrating once we reach 10,000 participants! If you're visiting the Ontario Science Centre over the next few weekends, the 10,000th participant could be you.

Here is some feedback we received from a family who took part in Spit for Science:

"Our family just wanted to drop you a line to let you know that Spit for Science is a brilliant idea. Having our children participate directly in an 'experiment' has lead to one of the more animated dinner conversations in our house this weekend! We have never been asked so many health/science questions before. I think we covered sampling, statistics, behaviour disorders, consent to treatment and DNA!!

You must also be congratulated on your choice of staff, lead by Hrag, as they were all knowledgeable, approachable, kid-friendly and answered all of the crazy questions that kids (and parents) will always ask!"

If you or your family has taken part in Spit for Science and want to give us some feedback, feel free to leave a comment below. We would love to hear your thoughts!

Photo Update!!

We recently had a camera on hand to capture some fun "Spit for Science" moments

One of our team members, Alex, watches 2 kids complete the "Stop Task"

Participants answer questions about themselves or

their child on our computerized survey

3 participants work enthusiastically on their spit samples

One of our team members, Anoush, collects a completed spit sample

We had a very busy March Break!

Thank you to all the kids, teens and parents who took part in our study during March Break. We had a very impressive 654 participants, bringing our total number of participants up to 9176!

We are looking forward to breaking the 10,000 mark, and hope to see you at the Science Centre in the coming months!

Over 8000 people have "Spit for Science"

Over 8000 visitors to the Ontario Science Centre have participated in our "Spit for Science" project! We look forward to recruiting new participants during the Family Day weekend in February (Saturday February 13th, Sunday February 14th and Monday February 15th). See you then.

More results!

Figure 1

Figure 2

These figures represent the distribution of scores on the measure of obsessive-compulsive (OC) traits we are using at the Ontario Science Centre, based on a parent reports of their children. The horizontal ("X") axis represents various total scores on the questionnaire which contains multiple items quantifiying different types of OC traits. The vertical ("Y") axis shows how often these scores occur in the population.

The distribution of scores approaches a normal distribution (see blog entry dated September 23, 2009 for an explanation of a normal distribution) but is slightly "skewed" leftward (or downward). However, despite the fact that parents tend to report low scores on this measure, there is still a very wide range of scores and quite a few children with high levels of OC traits.

In Figure 1, the total distribution of scores is illustrated.

In Figure 2, different curves are shown for boys and girls. Boys, shown in blue, are found to have slightly lower scores than girl, shown in red.