No, feel free to also consider majority languages. Various possibilities come to mind, e.g., targeting a particular dialect of a majority language. Or comparing the sketch results with what we know from larger datasets, thus helping to assess the validity of the sketch format, etc.

There is some information in Part II of the manual, but for reasons of feasibility, we are currently focusing on children who are either monolingual or have a single dominant language. However, we are very open to discussing ways to address multilingual acquisition within the sketch format.

Unfortunately, no. Our intent is to provide a framework that you can refer to when applying for your own funding: this may be a way to argue for the relevance of your project and to demonstrate its feasibility to the funding agency.

We have done initial comparisons for German (Urbanczik 2023) and Inuktitut (Lee & Allen 2023). The encouraging result is that the sketch corpora contain high-frequency phenomena and major stages in the acquisition trajectory, and they do not produce wrong results. But the corpora are too small to capture everything and we have to calibrate generalizations accordingly: they do not allow us to make statements about what children know or do not know at a given age, but they are rich enough to allow us to formulate predictions and hypotheses. In general, analyses should stay as close as possible to the observable corpus data. If you are interested in contributing acquisition sketches of well-described languages, we encourage you to consider the possibility of comparing sketch results with what we know from larger datasets, and thus help assess the validity of the sketch format.

We recommend that the children be recorded at five age points (ages 2;0, 2;6, 3;0, 3;6 and 4;0).

For at least one hour at each time point, but ideally for an entire day.

We recommend a minimum of two children.

Ideally, yes. But if this is not feasible, feel free to record different children at the different age points.

Yes. Our framework allows for considerable flexibility and we believe that any data is better than none. However, we recommend that you contact us early in the process to discuss options.

We recommend not being too picky and including more children, as it is likely that some children will drop out during the course of the study for various reasons; also, it is always better to have more data to choose from. Keep in mind, though, that the project should remain feasible. In the end, a small project that is completed is better than a comprehensive project that is not completed.

Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages: collecting data within the same context makes the data more comparable, but collecting data from different contexts gives us better insights into the diversity of learning environments. We therefore refrain from making recommendations. However, we advise you to consider the recording context in your analysis, as different contexts favor different types of interaction and thus may increase or decrease the frequency of certain phenomena.

Maybe. But the intention is to maximize the amount of language within the 5 hours of recorded interaction. The goal is to develop a basic understanding of what the acquisition trajectory is like in the language - and this will be much easier with more data and clear speech (i.e. a talkative and clear child). Hopefully this won't have too much effect on whether a particular structure is used or not at a given age. On this basis, it will be possible to later extend the scope of the project and aim for comparisons with, e.g., less talkative children. You can also decide to record a wider range of children now, and then use their data for comparison later.

The ethics approval process will vary from university to university and country to country, and it is thus difficult to give general recommendations. However, one important issue that needs to be addressed is the possibility of making the data or parts of the data available through, e.g., a language documentation archive or through CHILDES. This may be problematic for the audio/video recordings, but we encourage you to discuss the possibilities with the language community and the archive of your choice, and to consider making minimally the transcripts available.

We have had good experience with doing trial recordings with the first set of participants, and then reviewing and discussing the video together. When recruiting further families, we recommend involving participants who were previously recorded: who can explain how the recording worked for them (e.g. what they did during the recording, where they placed the camera, how they handled scenes that they didn't want to be recorded etc.), and - if possible - consent to showing their video (so that other families get an idea of the output). This allows families to discuss issues, resolve doubts etc.

We recommend to review the recording with the family and other participants, so that they can decide if they want to cut scenes (maybe a breastfeeding scene, maybe someone entering the scene without a T‐shirt, etc.). This is also a great opportunity to discuss the logistics of future recordings (e.g. where to put the camera next time such that participants can easily leave the scene whenever they do not want to be recorded).

We offer the possibility to publish within Special Publication 28 of the peer-reviewed journal Language Documentation & Conservation, but of course this is not the only conceivable publisher.

Yes.

There is currently no deadline. The Special Publication is a ‘living issue’ and new sketches can be added as they come in.