Families with infants: Enroll in Vanderbilt's CARE Study

The CARE (Collaborative Analysis of Relationship Experiences) Study is a research project that aims to understand children's interactions with their caregivers. As a participant, we will ask you and your child's other parent (if applicable) to engage in a number of research activities when your child is approximately 12 months old. Participation will include using wearable devices to study family interaction patterns and learn more about your child's daily life. Your family will be asked to wear these devices every day for a week (7 days in a row). After your week-long assessment, we will ask you (or your child's other parent) and your child to come to Vanderbilt University to take part in activities within our research rooms. A final session approximately one month later is the same session but with the other parent (if applicable). During these sessions we will ask you questions about your thoughts, feelings, and experiences and will complete an tasks where parents interact with their child.

Overall, the study will take about 7-8 hours (for both parents, if applicable) across two visits at Vanderbilt in addition to the home visit and the in home assessments. If you complete all parts of the study, your family can earn $415 (allocated between each parent based on participation), and we also provide small gifts and written reports on information about your child obtained via the study!

We understand that parents with young children are busy, so we offer flexible scheduling, including daytime and weekends. If you have other children, we can provide childcare by trained staff members during the sessions, and we can also help provide or cover the costs of transportation. We know that participating in a study like this might seem like a lot of work, but we hope to find families who are excited to be part of this research.