Hi everyone. I'm requesting permission to post an "add" or a post here describing my online survey for an academic study. I'm an adult with Asperger's myself and so I've decided to become a psychological researcher in the area. Please note this isn't a "homework" project, but is a study which will hopefully be published in an academic journal.

I've messaged Gareth twice but haven't heard back. I assume being the admin that Gareth might get quite a few messages so I understand. Nonetheless I was hoping for a response here.

The study is looking at emotion regulation in adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorders. It goes for about 30 minutes, and participants can enter the draw to win a $300 prize.

I think it's important to note that one of my philosophies in regards to ASD is to not "treat" ASD, but to "treat" anything that is dysfunctional for the individual. So while autistic traits in themselves may not be "clinical" or "need to be changed/treated/etc", other things associated with ASD, such as anxiety and depression specifically, may need to be addressed to improve the well-being of those individuals. This is one of the things this study tries to address.

Thanks for your time,
Damian

I reported this as a request to post a survey, that will probably get noted.

Even though posting this thread will probably get it noticed, also

Good luck and welcome

I'm interested.

Thanks Skyblue1, hopefully I'll get a response soon. And thanks Xaisede for your interest. I won't post the survey until I get permission though.

You can count me in for that as and when it arrives.

Now, what about that permisson (or not).

If allowed, I'm interested.

I haven't got a response yet. What would be the best avenue for me to get permission? Or should I just post the link to the survey? After all I haven't gotten a rejection after 3 requests (yes I know.. sneaky..)

Contact nu or d_olson.

That will get you banned and your link broken.

You should have clicked the Email button under the name of myself, D_Olson or Gareth, or gone into our IRC channel up the top.

I'll forward this request to Gareth, he's the head honcho around here.

I'll approve this one, but please email me directly in future.

Thank you for the approval. As I mentioned earlier I PM'd but I will email in the future.

So here's my Add:

I'm an adult with Asperger syndrome and I am studying my PhD at the University of Queensland in Australia. I'm looking at emotion regulation in adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorders. I'm currently running a survey for this project and I'm looking for participants to fill it out.

Participants could win a prize worth up to $350 AUD (you don't have to be Australian to participate or to win the prize). If you'd like to participate and help me out please go to the following link:

https://experiment.psy.uq.edu.au/asd/

The survey includes questions on depression, anxiety, emotion regulation issues, substance use, and asks what coping strategies you use. You don't have to have emotion regulation issues to take the survey of course.

There are a few things to note though. Firstly it will take about 30-40 minutes to complete (some take as little as 15 minutes, some take over an hour, depends on how fast you are). Another thing is from feedback I've been told it's a bit repetitive in some sections. Lastly you have to be between the ages of 16 and 30 to complete the survey. I understand this may exclude a large number from participating and I do personally believe it is unfortunate. However, previous research in this area has been on children, and we are trying to bring the focus up more towards adults. But first we have to look at adolescents and young adults.

Please let me know if anyone has any questions, and thanks again!

*edit* I should also add responses are anonymous. If you want to enter the draw at the end to participate, your email (should you decide to enter it) is stored on a seperate server to the survey so it will not be linked to your responses.

This post was last modified: 09-13-2012 05:52 AM by Damiano.

Oh sheesh, too old!

Eta: couldn't you just install a question about the age range, so you'd get different sets of data all in one go - you could compare immediately if there are differences due to age ...

This post was last modified: 09-13-2012 08:47 PM by Shnoing.

You are absolutely correct.  Unfortunately, even after planning this survey and pilot testing, this didn't occur to me until the survey was well under way. There are always a few things that researchers pick up halfway running their study that they realise they should have changed.

Initially I was going to allow a text entry to let people enter whatever age they were, however my supervisors informed me that it may be unethical to ask people to complete the survey when you don't intend to use their data, and that if my PhD topic is in adolescents and young adults that it implies I don't intend to use their data. So I chose the "select from the available ages" response option. However after a month of testing I realised I should have just stuck to the text entry.

One other thing I wish I had changed were the randomness of some of the items. I used a random number generator to order the questions.. but it doesn't seem to be random enough... Pilot testing didn't pick it up, only feedback after the survey was up and running online. Another thing is the way participants state their diagnosis. The way it is set up at the moment, participants state whether they have a diagnosis or not in one initial question, but then don't get any follow up questions about their diagnosis if they respond "no" to "do you have a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder?" However if they respond "yes" then a follow up question asks if they are self-diagnosed or not. In hindsight I should have put the self-diagnosis question on the first page because I believe a lot of self-diagnosed Aspies are saying "no" and then I can't tell them apart from neurotypicals. It would have been interesting to see if there were differences between participants who stated they were self diagnosed vs officially diagnosed. Ah well....