In this online game, your child will play a colouring game which is similar to a colouring book.
Why we are running this study
The purpose of this research is not to evaluate or attempt to ‘diagnose’ your child but to help us improve our understanding of how children (as compared to adults) understand complicated sentences when some parts are missing.
What happens during this study
In the game, your child will see a series of black and white pictures, which may be coloured in by tapping on the screen (if you are using a touchscreen device) or by clicking on the colours (with a mouse).
Participation is voluntary
You and your child are free to choose whether to be in this study. If you do choose to participate, it's okay to stop at any point during the sessions. Please do pause or stop the session if your child becomes fussy or does not want to participate!
What are the risks?
There are no expected risks if you participate in the study.
What are the benefits?
There are no direct benefits to you or your child from participating, but we hope you will enjoy the experience.
Data collection and use
Data are stored securely on Ulster University servers, and are only shared as described on this page. However, there is always a small risk that data transmitted over the internet may be intercepted or that the security of stored data may be compromised.
If you participate in this study, we (the research group led by Dr Juliana Gerard at Ulster University) will have access to:
- your account profile and demographic survey
- the child profile for the child who is participating
This includes changes you make in the future to any of this information. We may put different types of information together to learn more about child development. For instance, if your child participates in multiple studies from our group, we may look at how his or her responses compare across studies, or we may look at whether siblings tend to respond similarly. We may also study connections between children's responses and family demographic survey data.
You can find further information on Ulster University’s policies and procedures regarding data protection at https://www.ulster.ac.uk/privacy
Your rights as a participant
You are not waiving any legal claims, rights or remedies because of your participation in this research study. If you feel you have been treated unfairly, or you have questions regarding your rights as a research subject, you may contact the Ulster University Risk and Ethics Committee and Nick Curry, Head of Research Governance at n.curry@ulster.ac.uk or 028 9536 5123.
How to reach us
This study is run by Dr Juliana Gerard at Ulster University. If you or your child have any questions or concerns about this study, or in the very unlikely event of a research-related injury, please contact Juliana Gerard at j.gerard@ulster.ac.uk or 028 9536 5175.
If you consent to participate, click the "Next" button above to start the colouring game!
About this game:
In this game, you will see some pictures to colour in, and sentences which can be used as instructions for colouring in the pictures.
The first three pictures and sentences are designed to teach your child how the game works, and have a slightly different structure than the following ones.
Click "Start!" to start this colouring game!
About this study:
In this study, we are interested in children’s understanding of pronouns which are not explicitly pronounced, as in the following:
1. The boy phoned the girl before running to the shop.
In this sentence, the subject of “running” is silent – there is no pronoun like “he,” “she” or “they” to specify who ran to the shop. However, we understand this sentence to mean that the boy ran to the shop, and not the girl (or anyone else) ran to the shop.
This interpretation is not a given, since we can change it simply by stating the pronoun overtly, for example:
2. The boy phoned the girl before she ran to the shop.
Sometimes we do find that children interpret Sentence 1 to mean that the girl ran to the shop; however, children do not require any formal instruction to eventually correct these interpretations themselves.
Sentences like 1 therefore pose a puzzle for research on children’s language: silent pronouns are (by definition) silent, so how can they be acquired?
The colouring game tells us how children understand silent pronouns without requiring a verbal response.
We are also interested in how children’s interpretations develop, and how these interpretations compare with adults.
