They may all be in the same classroom together, but each child in preschool may have a very different experience, a new study suggests. The researchers documented these different experiences using a novel technique in the classroom: They had children wear a video camera on their head for two hours on one day to see what the class was like from the child’s perspective.

The researchers documented these different experiences using a novel technique in the classroom: They had children wear a video camera on their head for two hours on one day to see what the class was like from the child’s perspective.

In this study, published recently in PLOS ONE, the researchers were interested in the linguistic environment — how were children exposed to language in the class?

«We found that the duration and frequency of kids’ interactions with teachers and peers was very different among kids,» said Leydi Johana Chaparro-Moreno, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in educational psychology at The Ohio State University.

«Overall, children interacted more with the teacher than their peers, but for some kids their peers were an additional source of hearing language.»

This was something that researchers could not easily learn from traditional studies, she said.

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Materials provided by Ohio State University. Original written by Jeff Grabmeier. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.