A Typical Visit

When a study comes up that your child is the right age for, we give you a call or send you an email, describing that particular study in detail. If you have the interest and time to participate at that point, we schedule a 30-minute appointment. If your schedule is full, we ask whether we can contact you again at a later point.

When you arrive at The Cottage on the day of your visit, a friendly research assistant meets you in front of the building and escorts you and your child inside.

In our comfortable and sunny waiting room, your child will find toys, puzzles, crayons, and other activities to allow him or her to become comfortable with the surroundings and the researcher. We take special care to ensure that both parent and child are comfortable before beginning the study.

While your child is getting comfortable, the research assistant explains the study to you in detail, and provides a consent form for you to read and sign. You also receive a copy of the consent form for your records.

The Study: When you feel like your child is comfortable, we move to a nearby room, where the study takes place. The study itself usually lasts about 10-15 minutes.

The exact details of each study vary, but most are very similar, and all are designed to involve fun, game-like activities. Your child will play with or look at some toys or objects and interact with a friendly researcher. The researcher might name an object, and then later play a “finding” game that asks the child to pick out all of the objects that can be called by that name.

We videotape our studies to allow us to keep track of which objects your child selects, and also to write down any comments made during the game. This videotape is kept completely confidential; your child’s name will never be associated with it. Furthermore, unless we have your explicit permission, this videotape will be viewed only by the researchers.

At the end of the study, we answer any questions that may have come up during the game, thank you for coming, and escort you back to your car.

Finally, if you wish, from time to time, we will email or mail you a newsletter report of the results of our studies so you will have a chance to see how the study turned out. Additionally, we update our web site regularly to reflect research from our lab that has been published in scientific journals. We are happy to provide reprints of those papers on request.

If your family would like to participate in our research, please register your 0- to 12-year-old (currently, our studies extend only through the elementary age). Use this form, email us, or call us. If you have questions or would like more details, check out our FAQ or feel free to continue browsing or to contact us directly.