Kidprime

PARTICIPANT REQUIREMENTS: 3 to 5 years of age, Male and female, English speaking only, Normal hearing

PURPOSE: The goal of Kidprime is to study the role of input in language acquisition. We look to see whether children will create new sentence patterns based on the models that we provide.

LENGTH: The study consists of one 1-hour session and sometimes a 30-minute follow-up session done two weeks later.

PROCEDURE: During the sessions, the child and the experimenter play language games. In one game, the child and the experimenter take turns describing what is happening in simple scenes. For example, the child sees a picture of an action such as a dog brushing a cat and is asked to describe what is happening. The child may also be asked to repeat the descriptions given by the experimenter. In the second game, the experimenter asks the child to look at pictures and to pick out the picture that best matches the experimenter’s description of what is happening in the picture.

BENEFITS: Our games are fun for children and give parents the opportunity to observe their children’s language skills. Each child who participates receives a stuffed animal at the end of the session.