Adding and Inviting Other Parents to your IAN Research Family Profile

When you build your family profile, be sure to add all of the parents who are related either biologically (blood) or through adoption to all of your children. It is important that we have two biological parents listed for each child and any adoptive parents. We want to find out how brothers, sisters, and parents are related to each other, so please add all parents regardless of whether you know them or not.

Don't worry about the names that you assign to them, as long as you know who they are. For example, if you have a child who is adopted and you didn't know her 'birth' parents, you should add them anyway. You could name them BirthFather or BirthMother. Or, if you are divorced from your child's other parent, add him/her. For an example of an important research study that used IAN data on the genetic relationships of parents and children, see A Unified Genetic Theory for Autism.

See Step #1, below, to find out how add your children's parents.

After you add a parent to your family profile, we encourage you to invite that parent to participate in IAN Research so that they can fill in information about themselves, view information that you have completed about their children, and participate in other research activities. You do not have to invite him/her, however. Other parents in your family profile will not be able to see the responses you give for your specific tasks. For example, a father will not be able to view the mother's information. But, he will be able to see the information completed for any of his biological or adopted children. If there are children in the family profile who are not related to one of the parents, then that parent will not be able to see information for those children. This is important because parents often have different perspectives and experiences regarding a child's diagnosis. We want to better understand these differences. In addition, genetic, economics, and sociological studies are often looking for information about entire families.

See Step #2, below, for information how to invite your children's other parents.

Step #1: Add other parents to your family profile

1. From your family profile, click the Add a Parent button.
2. On the Add a Parent form, fill in the information and click the Submit button. IAN Research adds that parent to your family profile.
   
   

Step #2: Invite the other parents to IAN Research and your family profile

1. In your family profile, find the name of the parent who you want to invite. Click the INVITE link for that person if that link is displayed. (If the INVITE link is not displayed, click the plus sign (+) next to his/her name to view your tasks for that person. Then click the INVITE link.)
   
   
2. On the Invite a Parent page, fill in that person's email. (It needs to be a different email address than yours.)
3. In the message box, include a message that tells the person what IAN Research is and why you are inviting them.
   
   
4. Click the Submit button. IAN Research sends your message. If you have the opportunity, remind the recipient to open his/her email and click on the link!