Rush University Down Syndrome Studies

Rush University is studying a new assessment that measures cognitive skills in children, adolescents, and adults with intellectual disability. The purpose of this research is to explore whether certain types of intellectual or cognitive tests are reliable, valid, and sensitive to improvement in evaluating treatment responses.

There are two tracks to the study – the Developmental Arm for people between ages 4-25 and the Aging Arm for people over 25.

The time commitment for each study is as follows:

Developmental Arm

Visit 1: 1 day for 4-5 hours

Visit 2: 2 years later, 1 day for 4-5 hours

Aging Arm

Visit 1: 1 day for 4-5 hours

Visit 2: 4 weeks later, 1 day for 1-2 hours

Visit 1 for both studies will require one trip to Rush and will last approximately 4-5 hours. During this visit, the participant will complete various types of cognitive testing via iPad and computer games, as well as paper assessments and the guardian/parent will complete some surveys and questionnaires.

Visit 2 for the Developmental Arm will occur 2 years after Visit 1 and will include the same activities as Visit 1.

Visit 2 for the Aging Arm will occur approximately 4 weeks after Visit 1. This visit will last about 1-2 hours and the participant will complete iPad activities.

The study doesn't involve any blood work or drugs so, it is not intrusive at all. The participants are able to say they are done whenever they would like and aren't forced to do anything they don't want to do.

For contact and signup information, please click HERE for the Developmental Arm flyer and HERE for the Aging Arm flyer.