ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½

Research Spotlight

The Research Spotlight section of the monthly newsletter is one way Children’s School parents can learn about research in progress.

Also, each time your child participates in a study that involves playing a “game” with a researcher (i.e., as opposed to merely being observed), he or she will get a participation sticker suggesting that you, “Ask me about the … game” and a study description detailing the task.

Feel free to contact Dr. Vales to discuss any questions you have about research.

In the research newsletter we share updates about the Lab School aspects of the Children’s School – the research projects, observations, and special class projects that support our mission and are an integral part of our daily life as a laboratory school. Our program is enriched by these connections and opportunities and I am excited to share updates with families! In this first newsletter, I will answer some common questions about our Lab School and highlight the research projects and observations that are starting. 

What are some of the things we do to ensure that children have a positive experience when helping the researchers?

• At the start of the school year, Mrs. Stilinovich and I visited each classroom to explain what happens when friends at the Children’s School are invited to play a research game. We talked about how doing the research games helps the researchers learn more about how children think and learn. We then visited the lab rooms together, where a classroom educator demonstrated the research routine of a research game with the children’s help. Children new to the Children’s School also participated in a practice research session with a familiar educator. These experiences help children become comfortable with the process and understand what to expect when they are invited to play a research game.
• Before beginning their project, researchers spend time in the classroom getting to know the children and talking about what will happen during their research game. This helps children become familiar with the researchers before participating, making the experience more comfortable and positive.

How will families know when their child participates in a session with a researcher?

Each time a child participates in a research project that involves playing a game with a researcher, they will go home with an “Ask me about the ___ game!” sticker and a 1-page description of what they did that day. For projects that happen in the classroom, you might see them mentioned in your child’s classroom blog.

How can families learn more about the research happening at the Children’s School? 

• In addition to this newsletter and the materials that your child brings home, you can see all projects and researchers currently working at the Children’s School on the bulletin board by the main office; research descriptions are also displayed outside of the main door to the Children’s School.
• If at any point you have questions about our Lab School, please feel free to reach out – I love talking to families!

Has research already started?

Yes! Four research projects have begun with the PreK/Kindergarten and Preschool 4s friends: the Odd-Fish-Out and Fruit Match Games, the Speed-Matching Geometry Game, the Listening and Repeating Word Games, and the Spaceship Game. Because these projects are continuing from last year, not every child will participate in every project this year. A description of each project can be found below.

What courses are conducting observations at the Children’s School in the Fall semester?

• Undergraduate students from Dr. David Rakison’s Developmental Psychology course started observing in our classrooms this week. The students observe children’s behavior, such as language or motor skills, with the goal of relating their observations to what they are learning in class. Mrs. Stilinovich coordinates these observations to make sure that we have a small number of students observing at a time and she also helps the students be unobtrusive during their observations.
• Undergraduate student interns Erin and Eunseo from Dr. Sharon Carver’s Practicum in Developmental Psychology course will assist with classroom routines throughout the semester. They also meet weekly with Dr. Carver to discuss different topics and to relate their observations and experiences in the classroom to the readings they do in class. This advanced undergraduate course is a great opportunity for students to extend their learning outside of the classroom and apply their knowledge in a real-world setting. 

Stay curious!
Dr. Catarina Vales
(as always, let me know if you have any questions about research)

 Learn more about the Odd-Fish-Out  and the Fruit Match Games!

Mady Davis-Troller, a Ph.D. student in Psychology working with Dr. Erik Thiessen, is continuing her longitudinal study looking at the development of executive functioning skills – like attention and self control – and how activity in the frontal cortex is connected to children’s developing executive function.Mady’s study has two types of sessions: behavioral sessions and fNIRS sessions. In a behavioral session, children play two games.

In the Odd-Fish-Out game, children see a row of fish on the screen and are asked to choose the direction the middle fish is facing, while ignoring the directions of the fish on either side. Sometimes the surrounding fish point in the same direction as the middle fish (the easier trials) and sometimes the surrounding fish point in opposite directions (the harder trials, requiring executive functioning). In the Fruit Match game, children see an image of a fruit as either a normal color, atypical color, or in black and white and are asked to press the colored button that matches the color the fruit should be.

In an fNIRS session, children whose families have consented to participation in fNIRS studies wear an appropriately sized fNIRS cap while watching a short calming video (like a moving screensaver, that allows the researchers to record a consistent measure of the brain at rest) or while playing the Odd-Fish-Out game. By comparing the brain at rest with the brain while engaged in a task that requires executive functioning, the researchers can measure how attention and self-control are supported by the brain’s frontal regions. Mady and her team will continue to work with the children over the school year to better understand how brain connectivity in the frontal cortex changes with age and how everyday experiences relate to growth in early childhood. 

Learn more about the Speed-Matching Geometry Game!

Research associate Olive Nicols, Ph.D. student Jialin Li, and undergraduate students Leeza Naumenko and Maya Kim are working with Dr. Jessica Cantlon to investigate how young children understand geometric shapes. In the game, children match a shape by either its overall shape or its features (such as angles, side length, or symmetry); this game helps the researchers understand the features that children use when identifying geometric shapes. The team is also interested in understanding whether this differs based on working memory (the ability to hold information in mind for short periods of time), which they measure using a short memory game. This project will help researchers understand if working memory helps explain the strategies children use when comparing shapes, an important component of early math knowledge.

Learn more about the Listening and Repeating Word Games!

Riley Lawrence, a senior undergraduate student who is working on her honors thesis in Linguistics and Psychology under the supervision of Dr. Christina Bjorndahl, is conducting the Listening and Repeating Word Games for her thesis project. The goal of Riley’s project is to understand how children learn to tell the sounds “s” and “sh” apart, both when hearing and when speaking. To answer this question, children play two word games. In the listening game, children hear words like “Sue”, “shoe”, “sip”, or “ship” and press the button that corresponds to the picture of that word. Some of the words sound ambiguous, and the children’s responses to these ambiguous words help the researchers learn what speech features children use to hear the difference between “s” and “sh”. In the repeating game, children are asked to repeat out loud a word they hear. These verbal responses are used to identify the speech features children use to say the difference between “s” and “sh”. Understanding the connection between hearing and speaking, and seeing how it changes with age, will help Riley understand how children learn to distinguish between speech sounds.

Learn more about the Spaceship Game!

Anyone who has observed a young child learn a new motor skill like writing or drawing has seen how hard it is to be fast and precise with new movements. In the Spaceship Game, research associate Olive Nicols, Ph.D. student Max Xia, and undergraduate students Leeza Naumenko, Maya Kim, and Claire Bruno are looking at how children learn new motor skills. Working with Dr. Jessica Cantlon and Dr. Jonathan Tsay in the Department of Psychology, their team developed a space-themed game called “Galactic Navigation”, which is played on a touchscreen tablet over two days. In the game, children launch space flights by following a path with their finger until a spaceship reaches a target planet. Some paths are repeated over time and others are presented only once. By comparing flights on the repeated path with flights on brand-new paths, and by comparing the first and second days, the researchers can measure how quickly children learn a new movement skill, how well they remember it, and if it transfers to new movements – which helps understand the building blocks of everyday skills such as handwriting and drawing.