What is a language scrapbook?
Voices are powerful vehicles for remembering. A language scrapbook retraces your child’s development through a series of short recordings. These are tagged with who, what, when, and where it's said. Over time, you will make a timeline of your child’s changing speech.
You can share your scrapbook with family who live far away. This is useful during social distancing. Also, children's speech changes as they mature and learn more language, so your scrapbook offers a bird’s eye-view of their development. Language scrapbooking is a fun activity for children ages 1 to 8 years. Take turns describing pictures on the scrapbook or capture spontaneous moments as they unfold.
What is Citizen Science?
COVID-19 has radically altered families' lives. Rather than at schools or on playgrounds, children are at home with family. We’re doing our part to keep each other safe, but how is social distancing affecting children’s learning environments?
We’re asking parents to help us answer this by making short recordings of interactions with their children. Our goal is to understand what lives are like for 6 million families, across different geographical locations and different social and economic backgrounds. Together, we will create knowledge that will help policymakers to support families after COVID-19.
Language scrapbooking is also a way to learn more about the science of language and child development. We will combine your data with those of others, and send out updates about our findings.
Be a Citizen Scientist. Share this call with others who want to contribute to language research and COVID-19 solutions.
News
September 17, 2020
KidTalk Principal Investigators Dr. Joshua Hartshorne and Dr. Yi Ting Huang, as well as KidTalk team members Kathleen Oppenheimer and Parker Robbins, posted the preprint for "Screen time as an index of family distress", a paper showcasing KidTalk data!
September 10, 2020
The New York Times featured KidTalk in an article about child language development during the COVID-19 pandemic!
September 3, 2020
The Prince George's County CTV News highlighted KidTalk in a recent TV segment, featuring interviews with KidTalk Principal Investigators Dr. Yi Ting Huang and Dr. Joshua Hartshorne!
September 2, 2020
CBS Baltimore WJZ 13 presented KidTalk in a recent TV segment, including interviews with KidTalk Principal Investigators Dr. Yi Ting Huang and Dr. Joshua Hartshorne!
September 2, 2020
KidTalk 2.0 is now live! Visit our latest blog post to read about all the new changes!
August 27, 2020
We have posted our first KidTalk O'Clock trivia question on our Instagram story! Check out our Instagram for new trivia questions, which will be posted every few days on our stories!
August 26, 2020
We now have 378 KidTalk users!
August 26, 2020
The YMCA has featured KidTalk in their Weekly Resource Roundup, a list of family-friendly activities!
August 20, 2020
We have published our first "Language Scrapbooking Tip of the Day"!
July 31, 2020
The Planet Word Museum uploaded an interview on Facebook with KidTalk Principal Investigator Dr. Yi Ting Huang!
July 31, 2020
The Curiosity Daily Podcast has featured KidTalk in a recent podcast episode!
July 8, 2020
We have our first child artist for “Start a Conversation”. Contact us if your creative kiddo wants an outlet for their work.
July 3, 2020
We now have 235 participants on KidTalk. Please help us spread the word!
June 30, 2020
The Dana Foundation has published an article about KidTalk!
June 12, 2020
We hosted our first "Ask a Language Scientist” discussion on Zoom. Check out our YouTube page for highlights from this segment.
June 12, 2020
KidTalk is now on the Children Helping Science platform.
June 9, 2020
KidTalk: Language Scrapbooking for Science launches in Beta.