Would you like to take part in research on child language development? We're looking for families with monolingual children aged between three-and-a-half and four years old (42 – 48 months) to take part in a new study about how preschoolers understand sentences that contain adjectives. Participating children should be within the age range between March and May 2019.
Although adjectives are a central part of language, they can be difficult for children to learn. Research shows that adults use information about the world to interpret adjectives quickly during listening, but we don’t yet know whether children’s understanding works in the same way. The aim of our project is to understand how children comprehend different types of adjectives, and how this relates to their other language skills.
We’re inviting families to the Child Development Unit at the University of Leeds so children can show us how they interpret descriptions of pictures. We’ll do this by recording how long they look at a screen while listening to speech. This part of the visit should take no longer than 20 minutes, but with some warm-up play and discussion with parents, the whole visit usually lasts around an hour. Parents remain with their child throughout and will receive £10 for their time and travel expenses.
If you’d like to know more about the study, or if you’d like to sign up to take part, please contact Dr Jamie Lingwood by email [email protected] or by phone on 0113 343 7836 (please leave a message) and we will send information to you. Alternatively you can sign up by filling in the webform at leedscdu.org/get-involved/registration/
This study has been approved by the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures Research Ethics Committee at the University of Leeds.