The new trend is due to lack of funding

Jan 19, 2009 11:30 GMT  ·  By

Sociologists say that a new breed of scientists is currently gaining momentum in the academic community, one that uses its own children for harmless experimentation, instead of paying others to undergo the tests. The researchers who apply this method are saying that there's nothing wrong with, for example, attaching a video camera to the skull of the baby, in order for them to follow which way their eyes are drawn to, and which object captures their attention most time. Naturally, no one would put their own child at risk, so at least the safety part is all figured out, experts say.

For example, MIT scientist Deb Roy installed 11 video cameras and 14 microphones throughout his house, and recorded most of the time it took his son to learn how to walk and speak. According to the researcher, this work is part of the larger Human Speechome Project, for which Roy has already gathered more than 250,000 hours of recordings. All the data is to be structured, and then to be used for scientific conclusions to various questions.

“The role of the parent is to protect the child. Once that parent becomes an investigator, it sets up an immediate potential conflict of interest. And it potentially takes the parent-child relationship and distorts it in ways that are unpredictable,” the director of the Center for Research Integrity at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Robert M. Nelson, says.

“You need subjects, and they’re hard to get. I don’t want them [the children] to feel uncomfortable, like I’m invading their privacy. When you mix being a researcher with being a parent, it can put your kids in an unfair place,” University of Pennsylvania developmental psychologist Deborah Linebarger, who is also the director of the university's Children’s Media Lab, adds. She has involved all of her four children in a study regarding the influence of media on kids, but has already drawn some boundaries as to how far she's willing to go with her work.

“I sign my own permission slips. If they’re your kids and you want to ask them questions, you can. If you want to put your kid into a drug trial, that’s different,” University of California in San Diego cognitive science studies professor Gedeon Deak, whose children have recently been part of the university's latest study, concludes.