Information letter: How do children learn words?
Dear Parent/Guardian,

My name is INVESTIGATOR and I am a Lecturer in Psychology at UNIVERSITY. I would like to invite your child to participate in a research project investigating how typically developing children and children with autism learn words. Studying why so many children with autism struggle to learn words is necessary to inform the design of effective educational interventions. This research will explore various aspects of word learning in children with, and without, autism in order to isolate the source(s) of their difficulties and identify ways of helping their learning. 

Children’s participation will involve playing simple and fun games. In one game, they will be taught the names of unfamiliar objects. After a short delay, we will assess whether they can remember the names correctly. In another game, children will learn the names of pictures presented on tablet computer. Again, we will assess their understanding of these new words after a short delay. Children will be video recorded while they play these games (please refer to item 7 on the attached consent form for further details).  To help our interpretation of children’s responses, we will measure some additional skills that relate to word learning (e.g. language comprehension and speech). 

Children’s participation will be divided into several short sessions, approximately 10-15 minutes in length. Their involvement will be completely voluntary and they will be reminded that they can withdraw from the study at any time. If your child expresses disinterest at any point, we will end the session. Children will be accompanied by a familiar adult throughout their involvement in the project, and the research team are fully DBS cleared.

In order for your child to take part, I require your written consent. All data will be treated with strictest confidence and will only be used for scientific purposes, including presentations at academic conferences and publication in scientific journals. Data will be coded by number to ensure anonymity and only grouped data will appear in final reports. All paper documents will be stored in a locked filing cabinet at UNIVERSITY and digital data (including video recordings) will be stored on encrypted computers and external hard drives. You also have the right to withdraw your child’s data with no explanation up to 2 weeks after they have the study, in which case the data will be destroyed. After this point the data will remain in the study.

If you are willing to provide consent for your child to take part, please sign the next page and return it to school at your earliest convenience. We will send you a letter detailing the findings upon completion of the study. If you would prefer for your child not to participate, you need not take further action.

If you would like to ask any questions regarding this study, please feel free to contact:

NAME (PI)
ROLE
DEPARTMENT
UNIVERSITY
POSTCODE

EMAIL
TELEPHONE

NAME (HoD)
ROLE
DEPARTMENT
UNIVERSITY
POSTCODE

EMAIL
TELEPHONE

NAME (RA)
ROLE
DEPARTMENT
UNIVERSITY
POSTCODE

EMAIL
TELEPHONE

 

Thank you for your time,

INVESTIGATOR