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PROJECT NARRATIVE The goal of the proposed research is to investigate how clinical genomic sequencing impacts families of pediatric patients. This research will develop an empirically informed framework of normative values important to families of pediatric patients, including ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI), which will then be used to elicit preferences for features of sequencing from a nationally representative sample of parents in the US.

PROJECT NARRATIVE Families with children who have identified deficits in speech and/or sensory or musculoskeletal impairments without a known cause may be referred for genetic testing to find out whether there is a genetic cause. However, there is little research into how parents and caregivers use this diagnosis to inform decisions about therapeutic services, access to school services, or how a genomic diagnosis informs the practice of the community professionals who provide these services.

This project is designed to improve our understanding of when to best communicate parental genetic risk information to minor children by assessing the minor?s readiness to receive such information from the perspective of the parent and the minor child themselves. We will interview parent-child pairs who have already communicated about parental genetic risk information to richly characterize experiences with, perspectives on, and implications of the communication event(s).