Pediatric Neuropsychological Data Profiling
Year
2012
Project Description
Kelli Kenyon and her mentors worked to summarize and enter data of 170 patients from a neuropsychological clinic into a database. The data can now be used for multiple neuroscience research projects including one that Kelli and her mentors did. Kelli and her mentors were studying children diagnosed with ADHD and analyzing the data to determine whether those children receiving treatment perform better on executive function and behavioral tests than those that are not receiving treatment.
Department/School
Psychology
Experience
Kelli Kenyon '16
Kelli, a first year student at St. Catherine University was taking Lifespan Developmental Psychology from Arturo Sesma. She had an interest in neuroscience and knew that Art’s wife was a professor in Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota so she asked if she could connect with her to discuss the field. Between her work in class and her initiative in pursing her interest in the neuroscience field, Art was impressed and asked if she would join him and his wife in doing research. The project involved pouring through a large amount of data collected from 170 patients with ADHD, brain trauma, or mental illness. From all the data in the files, which could be a stack of paper several inches tall, Kelli extracted the most important parts of the data onto one double-sided sheet, with the help of her mentors. Some of the information was vital statistics, IQ behavior analysis, tests of executive function, and more. This data was put into SPSS and can now be used for future studies.
Kelli worked on one such study during the summer and into the fall. She and her mentors were studying children diagnosed with ADHD and analyzing the data to determine whether those children receiving treatment perform better on executive function and behavioral tests than those that are not receiving treatment. Using the set of data that she entered from the condensed data, the results displayed dissimilarities to a previous study that serves as the premise to their replication study. There has only been one other similar study done, at least to their knowledge, and their findings contradict this previous study. Kelli stated that the pool of children may have been a possible reason for this divergent result as the participants in the data set had been seen at a neuropsychological clinic for various reasons.
Kelli had a great summer exploring the field of neuroscience research and is prepared to continue her goal of pursuing a graduate degree and further research. She has a better idea of the work involved as well as an understanding of what it means to maintain integrity in all areas of her life in order to accomplish her goals. Kelli would recommend the Summer Scholars program to all students in all fields. She found all of the students and faculty participating in the program were very engaged with their projects. They found it rewarding to work with professionals who are dedicated to helping students such as Kelli learn. As Kelli’s aunt told her, “luck favors the prepared mind.”
She says the Summer Scholars program “is truly a blessing for St. Catherine University to offer.”
Kelli’s plans include continuing her research in neuroscience as well as writing and publishing an article with the findings from her Summer Scholars’ and subsequent research.
Successes
- Continuing her research in neuroscience
- Plans to write and publish an article with the findings from her Summer Scholars’ and subsequent research