Speech and Nonspeech Predictors of Later Language Development

大量的研究调查了婴儿如何学习母语。 这些研究表明，一些早期的感知技能和经验为语言习得铺平了道路，并可能被视为发展语言技能的关键基础。 特别是，研究表明，婴儿？将语音流分离成单个单词的能力，以及跟踪输入中的统计关系（统计学习）的能力可能是语言学习的先决条件，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验证这一假设。 研究人员将对同一组7至11个月大的婴儿进行分割和统计学习测试，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量。 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成功与否的不同模式。鉴于大量强调统计学习和分割在文献中，从这些研究中获得的见解将在语言习得领域的研究产生深远的影响。更好地理解分割和统计学习之间的关系将为理论和实践上关于每一个或两者对语言发展的相对重要性的辩论提供信息。这项研究将大大提高我们对不同的婴儿能力和以后的语言发展之间的关系的理解，并导致语言习得如何建立在早期的知觉技能和经验的更细致的理论。 最后，研究结果可能最终导致早期识别出已知存在语言延迟风险的儿童，并反过来为研究人员和干预者提供指导，指导他们设计和测试干预计划的潜在下一步。 该项目还将为大量本科生和研究生提供教育机会。通过广泛传播研究结果，将加强这项研究的影响。 除了在研究期刊和会议上发表文章外，PI之前关于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中。

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.