How to become a subject

How to participate

Current participants:
Checklist 1: Words and Phrases
Checklist 2: Past Tense Phrases

How to Become A Subject

NOTE: We have recently completed the current phase of our twin study of language development,and therefore we are no longer enrolling new twin families. Please note that the information on the bottom of this page pertains to possible future studies and not to any current study. We would love to keep your family's contact information in our database for future studies. If you're interested, please write us at twins@wjh.harvard.edu with the following information:
1.) your first and last name,
2.) the twins' first names and sex,
3.) the twins' date of birth,
4.) the best phone number(s) to reach you in the near future,
5.) a phone number or address that is unlikely to change if you move (for example, the twins' grandparents).

We are looking for twins who...

are same-sex (but may be either identical or fraternal);

are between 0 and 3 years of age;

have no known speech, language, or hearing disorders;

have no known neurological disorders;

have no blood relatives who have been diagnosed with congenital speech, language, or hearing disorders.

are living within the United States

What we are doing

The aim of our research is to determine which aspects of language development have a genetic basis and which aspects have to be learned. To this end, we are conducting a long-term study of language development, starting from twins' first words and continuing until the twins are 3 or 4 years old. In order to carry out this study, we ask parents of twins to keep track of certain milestones in their children's language development. For this purpose we send out blank checklists to the parents of twins, which are forms that, when completed, contain lists of words, phrases, and sentences that the twins say, organized by twin name and the date. (To find out more about the study, click here.)

What we ask you to do

If you are waiting for the twins' first words, we would ask you to keep these checklists handy and note when your children start saying their first words and what those words are. Once your twins are beyond their first 50 or so words and begin to make short sentences--or if your twins are already onto the small-sentence stage--we ask you to put aside an hour or so each day to fill out an alternative set of checklists. This should not interfere too much with your normal activities, but you will have to set aside this time to pay extra attention to your children's language.

We would continue to give you detailed instructions and checklists. We also provide stamped envelopes for you to send the checklists back to our lab, supply new checklists as necessary, and call you every few weeks to see how things are going. At the end of the study, you would receive the profile of your children's language development and the results of the study.

Compensation for our subjects

Though our resources are limited, we try to give parents some token compensations along the way to show our gratitude for their help in this study. We offer payments of $5 every four weeks until $25 is reached, and then we offer a choice of an additional $25 or, if you are not sure of your twins' zygosity, we will pay to have zygosity testing done. At the end of the study, we will send you a pair of appropriately sized Twins Study @ Harvard T-shirts for your twins and a personalized parent report of your twin's language growth while they were in the study.

If you are interested in participating, you can...

e-mail twins@wjh.harvard.edu

write Professor Jennifer Ganger at:

Jennifer Ganger
Department of Psychology
University of Pittsburgh
210 S. Bouquet St.
Pittsburgh, PA 15260

We look forward to hearing from you!

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