Study title: Understanding the role of speech prosody and speech rhythm in children’s literacy skills

This study is part of a larger project exploring the potential of teaching children about prosody (i.e. speaking and reading with appropriate intonation, stress, and timing) in order to improve literacy skills.

This study is made up of two parts: 

(a) a Skype video call with a researcher to answer any questions you may have, and complete a 15-20 minute vocabulary task with your child

and 

(b) two 15-35 minute self-administered online study sessions of literacy related tasks. 

[NOTE: if your child has already taken part in the original prosody study at Dunchurch, only the online study sessions need to be completed; a video call is entirely optional!]

Results of the study will be used to better inform the development of a prosody-related literacy intervention for early readers

What is “prosody” or "speech rhythm"?

Prosody refers the “musical aspects” of speech. Prosody plays a role in many aspects of everyday speech comprehension. For example, it helps differentiates between questions (e.g. “It is raining outside?”) vs. statements (e.g. “It is raining outside.”) and between positive responses (e.g. “I’m okay today!) vs. negative responses (I’m okay today).

What is the purpose of the study?

The aim of this study is to better understand how an awareness of prosody may be important to reading fluency and comprehension skills.

Who is running this study?

The project is being coordinated by Sarah Weidman at Nottingham Trent University, who is being supervised by Professor Clare Wood at Nottingham Trent University.

Does my child have to take part?

Collecting data from your child is completely voluntary, and will not take place unless you give your consent. If your child wishes to stop at any time during the video call or the web-based assessment they may do so. 

What would participation involve?

If you wish your child to participate, you will be asked to take part in a short (15-20 minute) video call with the lead researcher where you will have the opportunity to ask any questions about the research and help set up your child to take part in a video call vocabulary assessment. Your child will then complete two 20 minute self-administered online experiments. All data will be kept securely on an encrypted laptop and only used for research purposes.

How will you protect my child’s confidentiality and anonymity?

Data collected from all children will be de-identified. Only the main researcher and her supervisor will have access to identifiable data. All data will be kept on an encrypted laptop in a locked filing cabinet. Raw data will be destroyed upon completion of the project, and all data will be destroyed upon five years of the publication of the research.

What are the benefits/risks in taking part?

There are no personal benefits of having your children take part in the study. However, your child may be contributing to the design of a novel and potentially important literacy intervention. If you choose, your child may also (a) be entered into a raffle to win a Goody Bag for participating and/or (b) receive a Personalised Completion Certificate. 

Will my child be recorded, and how will the recording be used?

Your child will be recorded during the reading tasks. The recordings will be de-identified, and listened to only in order to assess reading fluency.

Can I withdraw my child’s data from the research?

You may decide to withdraw your child’s data from the research study at any time. You have the right to ask that any data we have already collected be withdrawn up until four weeks after taking part in the study.

What happens next?

If you would like your child to take part in the research, please complete consent form below.
You will then be sent and email with further instructions and (a) a link to set up a Skype call with the researcher (b) a link to the first 20 minute session and (c) a link to the second 20 minute session.

Contact details for further information

If you have any queries about this research, please contact Sarah Weidman 

Email: Sarah.Weidman2017@my.ntu.ac.uk

Alternatively, you can contact Clare Wood (PhD supervisor)

Email: Clare.Wood@ntu.ac.uk

Thank you for taking the time to read this information sheet, and please do not hesitate to contact the researcher if you have any queries.