An interdisciplinary examination of speech processing in typical, deaf, and hard-of-hearing children

社会、行为和经济科学司提供博士后研究奖学金，为最近的博士毕业生提供获得额外培训的机会，在知名科学家的赞助下获得研究经验，并扩大他们在本科和研究生训练之外的科学视野。博士后奖学金的进一步设计是为了帮助新科学家指导他们跨越传统学科线的研究工作，并利用他们自己独特的研究资源、地点和设施，包括在国外的研究地点。该博士后奖学金支持心理语言学、语音处理和发展科学跨学科领域的新兴科学家。听力损失是美国最常见的出生缺陷之一，大约每1000个新生儿中就有3个患有听力损失。根据听力损失程度，儿童接受不同形式的干预（例如，助听器（HA）或人工耳蜗（CI））。尽管如此，这些孩子还是有很大的差异。语言和学术成果。虽然一些接受CIs的孩子发育正常，但有一半被植入的孩子会有语言障碍。诊所的听力筛查程序通常不包括精确的言语感知测量；因此，在不知道儿童是否能够理解语音输入的情况下，就提出了治疗建议。这使得很难有效地确定哪些儿童需要ci。如果儿童没有及早接受适当的干预，他们就会在神经发育的关键时期被剥夺重要的输入。在生命的最初几个月里，缺乏声音和语言的接触对大脑的发育有害吗？S听觉处理区。目前的研究将临床实践与研究方法相结合，以检查典型，失聪和听力障碍婴儿的语言处理能力的发展。这项工作为不同程度的听力损失儿童如何处理语言提供了有价值的信息。通过提供一套有助于更快确定CI候选资格的措施，该项目有可能大幅改善失聪或听力障碍（DHH）儿童的语言结果。研究结果不仅将增强对DHH儿童语言发展的科学认识，而且将为社会提供重要的利益。对于那些没有得到适当的早期干预的听力损失儿童的特殊教育，每年要花费公众数千美元，并使这些儿童无法发挥他们的潜力。此外，对正常听力儿童的研究为更广泛的婴儿语言感知领域提供了信息，为了解发育特征的轨迹提供了洞见。这个项目的发现和扩展对临床医生、父母、教育工作者、政策制定者、研究人员，最重要的是，对那些生活可能受到影响的儿童来说，都是相关的。本项目评估了一种混合方法的可行性，该方法采用心理语言学领域的技术和概念来研究DHH儿童听力损失程度与言语处理技能发展和后来的词汇结果之间的关系。通过结合父母报告和发展研究人员使用的行为测量（例如，眼睛注视/注视模式），以及听力测量（例如，耳声发射，听觉脑反应），该项目将发展科学的成果转化为临床群体使用，同时提供有关典型发展的宝贵信息。研究人员将这些不同的任务分配给同一名儿童和典型的儿童，在他们出生后第一年的三个时间点，以衡量他们的语言处理能力。这项工作的最终目标是更准确和有效地评估个体儿童是否可以通过HA或需要CI来发展语言。研究结果将有助于防止语言和语音习得的延迟，以及以后学业成就的滞后。该提案也得到了NSF EPSCoR的支持。

The Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences offers postdoctoral research fellowships to provide opportunities for recent doctoral graduates to obtain additional training, to gain research experience under the sponsorship of established scientists, and to broaden their scientific horizons beyond their undergraduate and graduate training. Postdoctoral fellowships are further designed to assist new scientists to direct their research efforts across traditional disciplinary lines and to avail themselves of unique research resources, sites, and facilities, including at foreign locations. This postdoctoral fellowship supports a rising scientist in the interdisciplinary area of psycholinguistics, speech processing and developmental science. Hearing loss is one of the most common birth defects in the United States affecting approximately 3 in 1,000 newborns. Depending on the degree of hearing loss, children receive different forms of intervention (e.g., hearing aids (HA) or cochlear implants (CI)). Nevertheless, there is a huge amount of variability in these children?s linguistic and academic outcomes. While some children who receive CIs develop normally, half of the children who are implanted will have language delays. Hearing screening procedures in clinics do not typically include precise speech perception measures; thus, recommendations for treatment are made without knowing whether children can interpret speech input. This makes it difficult to effectively determine which children require CIs. When children do not receive the appropriate intervention early enough, they are being deprived of vital input during an extremely critical period for neural development. Lack of exposure to sound and speech during the first few months of life is detrimental for development of the brain?s auditory processing areas. The current research combines clinical practices with research approaches to examine the development of speech processing abilities in typical, deaf, and hard-of-hearing infants. This work provides valuable information regarding how children with various degrees of hearing loss process speech. The project has the potential to substantially improve language outcomes in deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) children, by providing a set of measures that will help determine CI candidacy sooner. Findings will not only enhance scientific understanding of DHH children's language development, but also provide important benefits to society. Special education for children with hearing loss who fail to receive appropriate early intervention costs the public additional thousands of dollars per year, and keeps these children from fulfilling their potential. Furthermore, the inclusion of typical-hearing children informs the wider field of infant speech perception, affording insight into the trajectories that characterize development. Discoveries and extensions from this project are relevant for clinicians, parents, educators, policy makers, researchers and most importantly, to the children whose lives are potentially affected.This project evaluates the feasibility of a hybrid approach that takes techniques and concepts from the field of psycholinguistics to examine how the degree of hearing loss relates to the development of speech processing skills and later vocabulary outcomes in DHH children. By incorporating parental reports and behavioral measures used by developmental researchers (e.g., eye-gaze/looking patterns), as well as audiometric measures (e.g., Otoacoustic Emissions, auditory brain responses), the project translates the fruits of developmental science for use with a clinical group while at the same time providing valuable information about typical development. The research administers these various tasks to the same DHH and typical children at 3 time points in the first year of life to gauge their speech-processing ability. The ultimate goal of this work is to more accurately and efficiently assess whether individual children can flourish linguistically with a HA or will require a CI. Findings will help prevent delays in language and speech acquisition, and lags in later academic achievement. This proposal is also supported by the NSF EPSCoR.