Speech and Nonspeech Predictors of Later Language Development

大量研究调查了婴儿是如何学习母语的。这类研究表明，早期的一些感知技能和经验为语言习得铺平了道路，并可能被认为是发展语言技能的关键基础。特别是，研究表明，婴儿？他们认为，将语流分成单个单词的能力，以及在输入中跟踪统计关系的能力(统计学习)，可能是语言学习的先决条件技能，婴儿接受的母亲输入也可能发挥重要作用。目前的研究旨在通过实验来验证这一假设。研究人员将测试同一组婴儿在7到11个月大时的分段和统计学习，同时评估母亲对他们的输入。研究人员还将在一年后对这些儿童进行一系列语言和认知测试。通过这样做，我们将能够评估婴儿早期能力和经验的差异是否可以预测语言发展更成功和更不成功的不同模式。鉴于文献中对统计学习和分词的高度重视，从这些研究中获得的见解将对语言习得领域的研究产生深远的影响。更好地理解分词和统计学习之间的关系，将有助于从理论和实践上讨论两者或两者对语言发展的相对重要性。这项研究将极大地加深我们对不同婴儿能力和后来的语言发展之间的关系的理解，并导致关于语言习得如何建立在早期知觉技能和经验基础上的更微妙的理论。最后，结果可能最终导致更早地识别出存在语言延迟已知风险的儿童，并反过来为研究人员和干预者提供指导，指导他们在设计和测试干预计划时可能采取的下一步步骤。该项目还将为大批本科生和研究生提供教育机会。这项研究的影响将通过广泛传播结果而得到加强。除了在研究期刊和会议上发表外，国际儿童基金会以前对这一主题的研究还出现在全国和世界各地的各种电视和广播新闻报道中，并出现在几本面向广大受众的育儿杂志上。

A great deal of research has investigated how infants learn their native language. Such research has suggested that a number of early perceptual skills and experiences pave the way for language acquisition, and might be considered as critical underpinnings for developing language skills. In particular, research has suggested that infants? ability to separate streams of speech into individual words, and their ability to track statistical relationships in the input (statistical learning) might be prerequisite skills for language-learning, and that the maternal input an infant receives may also play a substantial role. The current research aims to test this hypothesis experimentally. The investigators will test the same group of infants on both segmentation and statistical learning between 7 and 11 months of age, while appraising maternal input to them. The investigators will also evaluate these same children a year later, on a range of language and cognitive measures. In so doing, we will be able to evaluate whether differences in infants' early abilities and experiences might predict distinct patterns of more and less successful language development. Given the substantial emphasis on statistical learning and segmentation in the literature, the insights gained from these studies will have profound implications for research in the area of language acquisition. A better understanding of the relationship between segmentation and statistical learning will inform the debate on the relative importance of each or both to language development, both theoretically and practically. This research will greatly enhance our understanding of the relationship among different infant abilities and later language development, and lead to more nuanced theories of how language acquisition builds on early perceptual skills and experiences. Finally, results could eventually lead to earlier identification of children at known-risk for language delay and in turn provide guidance to researchers and interventionists about potential next steps in designing and testing intervention programs. This project also will provide educational opportunities for a large number of undergraduate and graduate students. The impact of this research will be enhanced by broad dissemination of the results. In addition to publication in research journals and at conferences, the PI's prior research on this topic has appeared on a variety of television and radio news reports across the country and the world, and has appeared in several parenting magazines intended for broad audiences.