Behavioral and Neuroimaging Studies of Bilingual Reading

描述(由申请人提供)：拟议研究的总体目标是了解阅读--以及双语儿童和成人阅读背后的核心认知、语音和句法过程的发展。在这里，我们使用最先进的神经成像和行为技术研究双语阅读和伴随认知能力的神经发育、神经系统和功能神经解剖学。在教育、科学和双语家庭中，关于何时(多大年龄)让幼儿接触两种语言以及何时以及如何最好地教这些儿童在他们的两种阅读系统中阅读存在很大争议，我们在这里讨论：(1)双语接触是否会产生伴随的认知优势(如选择性地增强注意力和抑制能力)，其基础是什么，它是否积极地迁移到其他学习领域，如阅读？(2)最好是顺序地教双语儿童他们的两种阅读系统(第一，第一，(3)双语儿童和成人的认知注意和抑制、语音和句法加工是构成他们两种语言阅读的核心的神经发育时间进程、功能神经解剖学和神经系统是什么？为了以最普遍的方式回答这些问题，我们的研究涉及美国和加拿大4个不同地区的儿童和成年人，他们使用包括手语在内的5种不同的世界语言。这些研究的结果将提供基本的基于证据的知识，了解双语青年熟练阅读习得背后的众多变量(认知、语音、句法)，以及这些重要变量的发展轨迹，以预测更好的阅读结果。这些研究可能直接使教师、临床医生和双语儿童的父母受益，因为它们告诉我们何时以及如何最好地向年轻的双语儿童教授阅读，它们可能从根本上影响美国阅读教学的教育政策。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overarching aim of the proposed research is to understand READING--and the development of the core cognitive, phonological, and syntactic processes that underlie reading-in BILINGUAL children, and adults. Here we investigate the neurodevelopment, neural systems, and functional neuroanatomy of bilingual reading and concomitant cognitive abilities using state-of-the-art neuroimaging and behavioral techniques. Much controversy exists in education, science, and bilingual homes regarding when (what age) to expose young children to two languages and when and how best to teach such children to read in each of their two reading systems, which we address here: (1) Does bilingual language exposure give rise to concomitant cognitive advantages (such as select enhancement of attention and inhibition abilities), what is its basis, and does it positively transfer to other domains of learning such as reading? (2) Is it best to teach bilingual children their two reading systems sequentially (first one, then the other) or at the same time (simultaneously)? (3) What is the neurodevelopmental time course, functional neuroanatomy, and neural systems underlying bilingual children and adults' cognitive attention and inhibition, phonological and syntactic processing that form the heart of reading in each of their two languages? To answer these questions in a manner that is most widely generalizable, our studies involve children and adults across 4 distinct regions of the United States and Canada, whom use among 5 different world languages, including sign languages. The results of these studies will provide fundamental "evidence-based" knowledge about the multitude of variables (cognitive, phonological, syntactic) underlying skilled reading acquisition in young bilinguals and the developmental trajectories of these important variables to predict better reading outcome. These studies may directly benefit teachers, clinicians, and parents of bilingual children by informing us about when and how best to teach reading to young bilinguals, and they may fundamentally impact educational policy on the teaching of reading in the United States.