Statement of Consent
Please check all that apply (optional). I will allow for:
You can update your consent for all of these at any time by changing your privacy settings on the app. By using this app, you indicate that:
• You are at least 18 years of age.
• You have read this consent form or have had it read to you.
• Your questions have been answered to your satisfaction.
• You agree to have you and your child participate in this study.
• You can see a copy of this consent form through the app at any time.
CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE:
Project Title
KidTalk: Language Scrapbooking for Science
Purpose of the Study
This research is being conducted by Professor Yi Ting Huang at the University of Maryland, College Park and Professor Joshua Hartshorne at Boston College. We are studying how children’s language learning is impacted by social disruptions from COVID-19.
Procedures
You and your child will be asked to contribute information about your interactions using this scrapbooking app. For the next 6 months, we are asking thousands of families like yours to carry out the following tasks (with about how long they take):
• Provide speech recordings (3-5 times a week, about 2 minutes)
• Transcribe interactions into text (3-5 times a week, about 5 minutes)
• Guess what children say in a game (1 time a week, about 5 minutes)
• Answer questions about your family (2 times a week, about 2 minutes)
• Provide city/state location of interactions (3-5 times a week, 1 minute)
Over time, this app will build a scrapbook of your child’s developing speech, which you can track and revisit. By measuring how speech changes across many children, we will better understand the impacts of COVID-19 policies on children’s language-learning environments and development. This study will last 6 months, but you can continue beyond this time point. You can do these tasks any number of times, including once. You can decide how your data will be shared. There is no payment for participation.
Potential Risks and Discomforts
We do not anticipate any known risks to you or your child beyond those you would encounter in your everyday lives. All tasks are short so they are unlikely to upset or bore. There is a risk of breach of confidentiality, but we take steps to mitigate this (see Confidentiality below).
Potential Benefits
The study is not designed to help you personally. However, this app will make a scrapbook of your child’s speech, which you can keep and may find rewarding. Results from this study may inform educators and policymakers and lead to policies to support families during social/economic adversity.
Confidentiality
Your data will be associated with an alphanumeric code, which will not be connected to you or your device. You and your child will never be identified by name. It is possible that someone could recognize your voice from audio recordings, but long-term experience suggests that this is unlikely.
You can decide how your data can be shared (see Consent below). If you decide to stop sharing your data at any point, we will not share any new data, or any data we have not yet shared. However, we are unable to remove already-shared data from the public domain.
Your child’s information may be shared with representatives of the University of Maryland, College Park or governmental authorities if your child or someone else is in danger or if we are required to do so by law.
Right to Withdraw and Questions
Your participation is completely voluntary. You may stop participating at any time. If you have questions, concerns, or complaints, or if you need to report an injury related to the research, please contact the investigator:
Yi Ting Huang, at 301-405-4227 or ythuang1@umd.edu.
Participant Rights
If you have questions about your rights as a research participant or wish to report a research-related injury, please contact:
University of Maryland College Park, Institutional Review Board Office
1204 Marie Mount Hall, College Park, Maryland, 20742
E-mail: irb@umd.edu, Telephone: 301-405-0678
For more information regarding participant rights, please visit: https://research.umd.edu/irb-research-participants. This research has been reviewed according to the University of Maryland, College Park IRB procedures for research involving human subjects.