Moose - That would certainly have been preferable, but there's a good chance that the person on the phone did not know if it was enough to disqualify the children. Often it takes some time to look into a sample's history and decide if they meet the criteria. I agree that having you fill out more forms if they knew your kids weren't going to be in the study wasn't the best way to manage things. But at the worst that's what it looks like - a simple management issue and nothing that actually negatively effects the study. That's their focus. Any monetary compensation is not supposed to be significant enough to matter.

However, if they actually told your children about your condition, then they totally overstepped their bounds.

BlueInanna - If the teacher hides it by acting in such a way that his/her imbalance isn't noticeable, then it really doesn't matter. The kids can't be effected by stressful behavior that they aren't witness to. If she isn't hiding it, then there will likely be documentation of poor job performance.

However, it being unnoticeable is almost impossible with family. People have professional and personal lives. It's always going to be expressed and noticed more in your private life, with the people you live with everyday. I've yet to see someone with a serious problem that the family doesn't have any concept of. Too many walls are down... because we can't be 100% all the time. When our walls are down, it's just a bit more extreme. If I were conducting the study, I'd probably look into the teacher and her effect on the students (btw, were the kids ever interviewed?), but if the kids got on well with her and there was no poor job performance, I wouldn't necessarily rule them out.