Longitudinal Peer Social Networks and Early Language Development (LYLE)

Longitudinal Peer Social Networks and Early Language Development: Transforming Understanding of Critical Features of Young Children’s Classroom Experiences. LYLE was a multi-year study that sought to understand how preschool classroom social networks evolve over time. LYLE involved three teams: at The Ohio State University, University of Kansas, and University of Miami. The study used state-of-the-art sensing technologies which are embedded systems comprised of both hardware and software used to collect continuous proximity and language data on all children in the classroom throughout their day. These allowed researchers to gain a more accurate and holistic picture of children’s experiences, to examine how children’s experiences in their classroom social network evolve over the course of a school year, and how these experiences drive their development in important domains such as language and social-emotional. LYLE was the first study of its kind to examine these trends on such a large scale and across multiple preschool contexts.