Prime

PARTICIPANT REQUIREMENTS: Children ages 3;0-8;0 and adults over 18
Male and female
English speaking, bilingual, and English learners
Normal hearing

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

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

PROCEDURE: During the sessions with children, 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.

During the sessions with adults, participants look at pictures on a computer and listen to recorded descriptions of them, then generate their own descriptions of new pictures.

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. Adults who are learning English will get a chance to practice speaking and comprehension. Any adults learning English who have been in the U.S. less than one year are eligible to receive $16 to compensate them for participating.

Interested in Participating?