Early Development with Williams or Down Syndrome

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议研究的总体目标是描绘，并使意义，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。 这项研究将集中在三个群体的语言和认知发展：威廉姆斯综合症儿童，唐氏综合症儿童，和典型的发展儿童。 我们在当前资助期间的研究表明，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;唐氏综合征儿童表现出相反的模式。 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的一般性质的这些差异，包括所有三个群体在同一研究提供了一个独特的机会，以确定因素是普遍的，必要的词汇，交际，或语法的发展与那些特定的速度或路径，以语言习得。 拟议的研究包括一个5年的纵向研究开始在婴儿后期和纵向和横断面研究涉及学龄前和学龄儿童。 将使用观察和实验方法。 有四个具体目标。 第一部分是描述早期词汇增长曲线的性质。 二是进一步考察词汇操作原则和基本社会认知能力在新词习得和扩展中的作用。 第三个是开始描述患有威廉姆斯综合征的幼儿和幼儿的沟通能力的发展。 四是纵向确定威廉姆斯综合征儿童语言和认知能力的发展轨迹。 该研究将对语言与认知关系的理论模型以及发展性残疾儿童认知和语言干预策略的设计具有一定的启示意义。

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.