Piloting for Pakistan

Our lab has recently embarked on a new collaboration in Pakistan. The follow-up study is evaluating the efficacy of an randomized controlled trial that originally involved nearly 1500 infants. A subset of 220 4-year-old kids will participate in ERP testing in a lab that Brandon will be hopefully building next week (assuming his overdue visa comes through!). He has been training two of the Pakistani staff on all things ERP, so Zoe & Silas came into lab last week in order to help out as pilot subjects.

Zoe wasn't feeling well on the morning they were supposed to come in, so we decided I would take Silas in on Wednesday and Zoe could come in on Friday. This would give me some much-appreciated one-on-one time with each them.

Silas took care of wearing my badge and letting us into the lab,

He brought in a picture for my office.

He sat in a chair all by himself for the test,

And was such a great cooperator!

Saima was visiting from Karachi for training,

so she did the netting.

He did a go-nogo test of inhibitory control and a visual oddball test that measures attention.

It's the first time that he did an active task for a study. He definitely earned these stickers!

I had a couple of meetings after the testing was done, so I set Silas up with some markers and paper in the room next to my office. He wandered in to say hi at one point and was very intrigued by what Katherine and I were working on. He noticed that we were looking at some cool looking stuff on a large monitor. He hopped up on my lap and said "what kind of problems are you having at work?". He proceeded to hang out with us and look at data for the next little while. At the end of our lab visit I asked him if he wants to be a doctor or a scientist when he grows up. He answered with a resounding "SCIENTIST"!

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Zoe's lab visit was on Friday. It was Muneera's turn to practice her newly-acquired netting skills.

Following Silas' pilot session they made a lot of changes to the tasks, so Zoe was run on the new and improved paradigms.

She totally bonded with Brandon during the test.

I love exposing S&Z to what I do at work. I hope it inspires them to explore science as they get older!

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