We are part of the Infant and Child Studies Consortium, an interdisplinary research group at the University of Maryland investigatings issues of child development. Here are studies we are currently recruting for. We can schedule appointments Monday through Friday during the day, and on select Saturdays. Our studies usually take about 30 minutes to one hour. If you sign up for a study, we will give you directions by mail, email, or over the phone. For more information on how to participate, please feel free to contact us.
In this study children simply follow verbal instructions while playing with toys, or listen to stories about toys or pictures. Throughout the experiment, an eye-tracking camera will track the child’s eye movements. Later, we will retrieve the data from the eye-tracker to see how the child processed language during the experiment. Previous work in our research group has shown that these kinds of eye movements can tell us about children's moment-to-moment language comprehension. We invite all parents to be in the room at all times, including during the study. Afterwards we would be happy to answer any questions that you may have about the procedures, materials, and the goals of the research.
We have on-going partnerships with schools and daycare centers in the D.C. metro area to host on-site data collection for research studies. Parents are given a brief summary of the study goals/procedures prior to participation. Each study takes no more than half an hour. Your participation is entirely voluntary. The director and teacher will decide appropriate times when the child can participate in a small room nearby the classroom.
We are truly grateful for past collaborations with Apple Montessori School, The Center for Young Children, Paint Branch Montessori School, Center City Public Charter School, Franklin Montessori School, Meade Village Head Start Program, Azeeze Bates Head Start Program, and Tubman Head Start Program. Their willingness to host experiments on children's language abilities make this work possible. We are always interested in partnering with school who share values in evidence- and theory-based practice and understanding language abilities across diverse populations.
School are provided with a gift as a thank you for their participation. We will also send parents a letter describing our findings. Any information collected for this study will be confidential, and published reports will not mention individual children.
Your privacy is very important to us. Any information collected for all research studies will be confidential, and published reports will not mention individual children. Your child's file will be given a code number rather than a name for us to identify it. Only researchers associated with this project will have access to the data.
You can sign up for experiments via the SONA extra credit system. Additionally, you can directly contact the LCL and one of the research assistants will respond about the studies you currently qualify for.
Depending on the study, the participant will either receive credit via the SONA extra credit system or will be paid. On the SONA website, it will be explicitly stated if the study will provide extra credit or monetary compensation.
If you are interested in the topic of the study conducted and would like to participate further in research involving language development, see the Research page for a research assistant application. Additionally, we offer a full time internship for 1-2 people in the summer. The nature of the internship and the responsibilities of the intern vary summer to summer depending on the study the person is assigned to and the needs of the research lab.