Week 7 & 8: Difficulties & Fixes

Greetings Everyone!

      The last two weeks have been very busy and rewarding for this research. I am aware that there is no blog for week 7 and I had a reason for that. During week 7, I had hit a wall in my project. There were many difficulties that were causing me to put the project on a pause. And I wanted to combine week 7 and 8 to describe what happened and how it was fixed.
      So let's rewind a little bit. During Week 6, I had finally gotten two dyslexia centers to cooperate with the research. They had agreed to letting me to test my questionnaire on their students. I was very excited by this achievement; however, one of the dyslexia centers decided to discontinue themselves from the agreement. I was slightly bummed but still happy that I had partnership with at least one dyslexia center. Fast forward to Wednesday of Week 7: The center emailed out all their parents about my research asking if they would be willing to help. A few parents responded, but it was not enough to gain data for my research. At that point, I was stuck; I wasn't sure on what to do. It also didn't help that the test run we were simultaneously conducting was not working at its full potential due to some issues.
     Okay...enough with my sappy sad story of week 7. Let's just take Elsa's advice and 'Let it go!'

#Sorrynotsorry

      In research, there will always be a time where it seems like you have hit a dead end. Trust me, that's a good thing, because that lets you know that the research is working. It also taught me how to solve problems and move forward. Persistence and optimism were the words of the week.

Week 8: 'After a storm, there is always a rainbow'

      During the weekend between week 7 and week 8, I sat down and analyzed all the problems. And I came up with several solutions and new ideas. (See, troubles aren't so bad). One good thing came out from my brainstorming was my idea of running three different tests simultaneously. Initially, we were only running the test to calculate our positive predicted value. But after researching more about the dyslexia center, I learned that the center not only tutored children with dyslexia but also other learning disabilities. So I decided to test the negative predicted value and the false positive value. This opened my research to a bigger audience at the center, which increased the amount of data I collected this week. 

      I was a common visitor at the learning center this week. Every day for an hour, I would sit in the center and ask the parents if they would be willing to fill out the questionnaire. The parents were very supportive and were quite happy that I was carrying out such a research that would potentially help other kids from saving them from the problems their child faced from a late diagnosis. With the data that I collected, I was able to say that our questionnaire does not pre-assess for other learning disabilities besides dyslexia. But also, my data showed that we may have to tweak the questionnaire to make the pre-assessment more accurate for dyslexia. Thank you so much for tuning in! I am so excited to see where this research will go from here.

Until next time, 

Ritika Gupta:)

Week 6: Connections and Progressions

Greetings Everyone!

      This week was a very exciting week! My job this week was to talk to dyslexia centers and inform them of the research that I was part of. We were seeking their cooperation in order to increase the number of participants that have dyslexia. Out of the six centers I called, I was able to get two dyslexia centers to agree. (One said no and the other four still have to get back to me).

      With the two dyslexia centers in agreement, we are planning to give the questionnaires to the participants next week. I am excited to be getting more data and seeing where our questionnaire holds. With our current data, it seems like our questionnaire is pretty accurate. We have tuned some parts of the questionnaire to make it more precise and straight to the point. We also have reduced the number of questions to make sure that the parents and children can finish the test within 15 minutes--usually the time spent in the waiting room before the doctor's appointment. The current test of the questionnaire is also to confirm whether the changes we have made make a positive impact on the data.

Thanks for tuning in!

Until next time,
Ritika Gupta:)

Week 5: A Positive Direction *fingers crossed*

Greetings Everyone!

Honestly, I am surprised that is now Week 5. Gosh! Time has been flying by. But good news for all of you...I think my project is going in a positive direction!! YAY!! 

So what have I done this week??

Good Question! This week I had two main tasks at hand. First, start the testing for the negative predicted value of our questionnaire. Second, call dyslexia centers to use their students for our research. I also had a meeting with my faculty advisor, Ms. Gelblicht!

How'd it go??

I think it went well! I tested our screening tool on three kids who have dyslexia and our tool said it to be positive. But currently, the data is slightly skewed, because the kids have been receiving tutoring for their dyslexia and so they know tricks and tips that help them deal with their dyslexia. To fix this problem, I am going to be talking to a psychologist to use his patient's. The benefit in this will be that when the psychologist diagnoses his patients, he can then give them the screening questionnaire that I have been working on. This way we will remove the variable of how long the patients have been receiving tutoring for dyslexia. 

Dyslexia centers also seem to be interested in the research! So let's see how that goes!

Can't wait to share my progress with you all!

Until next time,

Ritika Gupta:)

Week 4: Just the Basics

Greetings Everyone!

Week 4 hasn't been the most eventful but was quite essential for my research. 

So to recap, I am working with my pediatrician and a dyslexic tutor to create a screening tool. When I joined the research. Version 1.0, 2.0, and 2.1 had been created and were somewhat in the process of being tested. My role in the research has been in the updating and the testing of Version 2.2 and 3.0. 

The questionnaire consists of three sections: 1. The consent form (very important!), 2. Parent Questionnaire, 3.  10 Matching Sounds Questions.  

This last week I spent my time researching the science and thinking behind the Parent Questionnaire. Becky gave me a very large binder that consisted of training material for a dyslexia tutor. It had loads of information about how you diagnose a child of dyslexia. A 4-inch binder that was filled with papers to the brim and was worth over $700. If you are thinking what I am thinking, then yes it was filled a lot of VALUABLE information. One really fascinating thing I learned was that a kid's handwriting can hint whether they have dyslexia with signs such as the shape of the letters, and how the words and letters are placed on the paper. (Reading the binder took me about three days to finish.)

Thanks for tuning in:)

Until next time, 

Ritika Gupta:)