Early Development with Williams or Down Syndrome

描述(由申请人提供)：本研究的总体目标是描绘并理解词汇发展的过程及其与交际发展、语法发展以及非语言认知发展的一般和具体方面的关系。这项研究将重点关注三组儿童的语言和认知发展：威廉姆斯综合征儿童、唐氏综合症儿童和典型发育儿童。在目前的资助期间，我们的研究表明，威廉姆斯综合征儿童的语言技能比他们的非语言认知技能更先进，而唐氏综合症儿童则表现出相反的模式。通常处于发育阶段的儿童往往具有同等水平的语言和认知技能。由于语言和非语言认知之间的关系在一般性质上的这些差异，将所有三个组纳入同一研究中提供了一个独特的机会，以确定词汇、交际或语法发展所普遍和必要的因素，以及特定的语言习得速度或途径所特有的因素。这项拟议的研究包括一项从婴儿期后期开始的为期5年的纵向研究，以及涉及学龄前和学龄儿童的纵向和横向研究。将采用观察法和实验法两种方法。有四个具体目标。第一个是描绘早期词汇增长曲线的性质。二是进一步考察词汇操作原则(启发式)和基础社会认知能力在新词习得和扩展中的作用。第三是开始描绘患有威廉姆斯综合征的学步儿童和幼儿的沟通能力发展情况。四是纵向测定威廉斯综合征儿童语言和认知能力的发展轨迹。这项研究将对语言和认知之间关系的理论模型以及为发育障碍儿童设计认知和语言干预策略都有意义。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall objective of the proposed research is to delineate, and make sense of, the process of lexical development and its relations to communicative development, grammatical development, and both general and specific aspects of nonlinguistic cognitive development. The research will focus on the language and cognitive development of three groups: children with Williams syndrome, children with Down syndrome, and typically developing children. Out research during the current grant period indicates that the language skills of children with Williams syndrome are more advanced than their nonverbal cognitive skills; children with Down syndrome show the opposite pattern. Children who are typically developing tend to have equivalent levels of language and cognitive skills. Because of these differences in the general nature of the relations between language and nonlinguistic cognition, inclusion of all three groups in the same studies provides a unique opportunity to identify factors that are universal and necessary to lexical, communicative, or grammatical development versus those that are specific to particular rates or paths to language acquisitions. The proposed research consists of a 5-year longitudinal study beginning in late infancy and both longitudinal and cross-sectional studies involving preschool-and school-age children. Both observational and experimental methods will be used. There are four specific aims. The first is to delineate the nature of early lexical growth curves. The second is to further examine the role of lexical operating principles (heuristics) and foundational social cognitive abilities in the acquisition and extension of new words. The third is to begin to delineate the development of communicative abilities by toddlers and young children who have Williams syndrome. The fourth is to determine longitudinally the developmental trajectories of language and cognitive abilities for children with Williams syndrome. The research will have implications both for theoretical models of the relations between language and cognition and for the design of cognitive and language intervention strategies for children with developmental disabilities.