Can Younger Children Tell the Difference Between Medicine or Candy?

Question: Can younger children tell the difference between medicine and candy?

Hypothesis: I believe that they will only tell the difference from candy and medicine with popular candies. I also think that with Tums and mints, they won't because they look very much alike.

Risk and Safety: A possible risk is if the children were to eat the different types of medicine. This is very unlikely considering that they won't be able to eat them, just pick which one they think is which.

Can Young Children Tell the Difference

Between Medicine and Candy?

Do younger children have the ability to figure out which is which between medicine and candy if they are side by side or in the same bowl? For this project, I had two volunteers to help me that were different ages. The reason why I chose this project was because I had seen something very interesting on television. The news was broadcasting about young children not being able to tell the difference between candy and Tide detergent pods.. My hypothesis was that younger children won’t be able to tell the difference because they could look identical to each other. To test this hypothesis I chose candy that looked like medicine. The candies I chose were Gummy Bears, Strawberry Mints, and Canada Mints. My medicine types I chose were, Daily Gummies, Cough Drops, and Tums.

First, I got two volunteers ages 7 and 10 years old. Once they signed their permission slips, testing could begin. In the first part of the experiment, I put the medicine and candy in a line then I asked the volunteers which they thought was which. I then put all the candy and medicine into one bowl together. Then mixed them together in the bowl. After that I ask them which they thought was which.

The volunteers were able to tell the difference in part two of the project but in part one the youngest volunteer had gotten the opposite of what I said. Volunteer one had gotten all parts right and none wrong and volunteer two got the first part wrong and all right in the second part.

My hypothesis was half correct in this experiment. It was correct because one out of the two volunteers had guessed correct. The youngest one got it all right but one wrong and the oldest got it all right. To make this experiment better I could have gotten more people the same age as the youngest person and tested it that way. Another way I could have made this better was if I got more choices of candy and medicine to make it more complex. Lastly, in this experiment I learned that it is hard for younger children to tell the difference between medicine and candy.

Links:

Were I found the idea: http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/HumBeh_p016.shtml

Other article about this topic: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/childrens-health/articles/2011/10/17/its-easy-to-mistake-medicine-for-candy

People who have tried to figure this topic out as well: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/312951