An R interface to childes-db

The childesr package allows you to access data in the childes-db from R. This removes the need to write complex SQL queries in order to get the information you want from the database. This vignette shows some examples of how to use the data loading functions and what the resulting data look like.

Install childesr from this GitHub repository:

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("langcog/childesr")

childesr reads data from the childes-db dataset on Redivis via the redivis R client, which is not on CRAN. Install it with:

install.packages("redivis", repos = "https://langcog.r-universe.dev")

(A bug in redivis macOS binaries built before 2026-07-31 broke OAuth token caching, causing repeated browser authentication prompts; current r-universe binaries are fine. If you see repeated auth prompts, update the redivis package with the command above.) For headless or scripted use, you can instead authenticate with an API token, which bypasses the OAuth cache entirely: create a token under your workspace settings at redivis.com and set Sys.setenv(REDIVIS_API_TOKEN = "...") before use.

Tutorial

To get a hands on walk-through on how to use childesr to access childes-db, check out this tutorial.

Other relevant GitHub repositories

• Website frontend: http://github.com/langcog/childes-db-website
• Interactive data visualizations: https://github.com/langcog/childes-db-shiny