One or More?

For 4-to-5-year-olds who speak English

Your child will hear short sentences about different things that children might do. They will see pictures that can go with the sentence and choose the picture they think matches best with the sentence. We are interested in which picture children pick when the pronoun in the sentence is singular or plural.

We know that most adults comfortably use the word "they" to refer to a single person, especially when we don't know the person's gender. For example, most adults would agree that the sentence, "A doctor knows that they should be kind," sounds perfectly fine. What we don't know is when children learn this specific rule. Children first learn "they" as a plural word (as in, "The kids are here. They are playing"). Our goal is to understand when they learn to be flexible and use "they" for a single person, like adults do.

15 minutes

We will email you a $5 Amazon.com gift card within approximately one week. To be eligible for the gift card 1) your child must be in the age range for this study, 2) you need to submit a valid consent statement, 3) we need to see that there is a child with you, and 4) English is (one of) your child's first languages. But we will send a gift card even if you do not finish the whole study or we are not able to use your child's data! Children can only earn payment once.