Statistical Word Learning and Non-Social Visual Attention in Children with Autism

自闭症儿童的统计词汇学习和非社交视觉注意力

• 批准号: 8312056
• 负责人: Courtney E Venker
• 金额: $ 3.31万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-09-01 至 2013-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8312056
• 关键词: 7 year old; Activities of Daily Living; Address; Adopted; Adult; Affect; Attention; Autistic Disorder; Child; Clinical; Cognitive; Communication; Cues; Development; Effectiveness; Etiology; Eye; Goals; Heterogeneity; Impairment; Infant; Investigation; Knowledge; Label; Language; Language Delays; Language Development; Learning; Linguistics; Machine Learning; Measures; Methodology; Methods; Outcome; Participant; Pattern; Phase; Population; Quality of life; Research; Sampling; Stimulus; Testing; Time; Training; Visual; Visual attention; Vocabulary; Work; autism spectrum disorder; base; clinical practice; comparison group; cost; design; effective intervention; experience; gaze; innovation; intervention program; joint attention; novel; response; sample fixation; skills; social; theories; therapy design; visual stimulus

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Many children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have difficulty learning words, which negatively impacts their functional independence and quality of life. Unfortunately, relatively little is known about the learning mechanisms that underlie these deficits, which has important theoretical and clinical implications. This study will address this gap in knowledge by examining the impact of statistical learning and non-social visual attention on word learning in children with ASD. Implicit eye-gaze methods will be the primary methodology because they capture real-time information about learning and attention. Because of their limited task demands, these methods are appropriate for children with a range of abilities. Many studies have focused exclusively on high-functioning children with ASD, thus limiting research and clinical implications for the broader population. The use of eye-gaze methodology in this study facilitates the inclusion of children with a broad range of language and attentional abilities. Statistical learning (i.e., sensitivity to linguistic regularities) is a roust language-learning mechanism in typical development, but almost nothing is known about statistical learning in autism. Specific Aim 1 (Study 1) investigates a form of statistical learnin known as cross-situational word learning, which supports word learning in ambiguous contexts. Because children with ASD have difficulty using social cues to determine word meanings and thus experience many ambiguous learning situations, it is vital to characterize their cross-situational word-learning abilities. It is hypothesized that the ASD group will have impaired cross-situational learning abilities but that considerable variability will emerge. Specific Aim 2 will characterize this variability by examining two prerequisite skills--the ability to recognize recurring visual stimuli across contexts (Study 2a) and the ability to form a label-object association (Study 2b). A significant relationship between prerequisite skills and cross-situational learning is anticipated in the ASD group. It is well known that children with ASD demonstrate atypical social attention (e.g., joint attention), but many children also demonstrate impairments in non-social visual attention. Specifically, many children with ASD show atypical attentional orienting (e.g., prolonged disengagement of attention) that may impact their ability to use cross-situational learning mechanisms. Specific Aim 3 (Study 3) will investigate the relationship between cross-situational learning and an established, independent visual orienting task. Study 4 will be an exploratory study that examines the relationship between visual orienting during the training phase of the cross-situational learning task (Study 1), and learning outcomes. This study is based on recent work with typically developing infants. Visual orienting, specifically disengagement, is expected to predict cross-situational learning in children with ASD in Studies 3 and 4. Findings from this study will inform theories of ASD and language acquisition, and may have clinical implications for maximizing the effectiveness of existing treatment paradigms and designing new intervention programs to facilitate language acquisition in children with ASD. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The goal of this research is to understand the mechanisms that underlie word-learning deficits in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Specifically, this study will evaluate cross-situational word learning in children with ASD, examine the impact of prerequisite learning skills, and characterize the relationship between non-social attention and cross-situational word learning. This work will inform theories of autism and theories of language acquisition. Study findings may also have implications for maximizing the effectiveness of existing language treatments and designing novel intervention programs for children with ASD.

描述(申请人提供)：许多患有自闭症谱系障碍(ASD)的儿童在学习单词方面存在困难，这对他们的功能独立性和生活质量产生了负面影响。不幸的是，人们对这些缺陷背后的学习机制知之甚少，这具有重要的理论和临床意义。这项研究将 通过研究统计学习和非社会视觉注意对自闭症儿童单词学习的影响来解决这一知识差距。隐含的眼睛凝视方法将是主要的方法，因为它们捕捉到了关于学习和注意力的实时信息。由于任务要求有限，这些方法适合各种能力的儿童。许多研究只专注于患有自闭症的高功能儿童，因此限制了对更广泛人群的研究和临床影响。在这项研究中，眼睛凝视方法的使用促进了具有广泛语言和注意力能力的儿童的纳入。统计学习(即对语言规律的敏感性)是典型发展中的一种新的语言学习机制，但对自闭症患者的统计学习几乎一无所知。具体目标1(研究1)调查了一种被称为跨情景单词学习的统计学习形式，它支持在歧义语境中的单词学习。由于自闭症儿童难以使用社交线索来确定词义，从而经历了许多模棱两可的学习情景，因此表征他们的跨情景词汇学习能力是至关重要的。假设自闭症患者的跨情景学习能力会受损，但会出现相当大的变异性。具体目标2将通过检查两项先决条件技能来描述这种可变性--跨背景识别反复出现的视觉刺激的能力(研究2a)和形成标签-物体关联的能力(研究2b)。在ASD组中，预期前提技能和跨情景学习之间存在显著的关系。众所周知，患有自闭症的儿童表现出非典型的社会注意(例如，联合注意)，但许多儿童也表现出非社会视觉注意的障碍。具体地说，许多患有自闭症的儿童表现出非典型的注意力定向(例如，注意力长期脱离)，这可能会影响他们的能力 使用跨情景学习机制。具体目标3(研究3)将调查跨情景学习与既定的、独立的视觉定向任务之间的关系。研究4将是一项探索性研究，考察跨情境学习任务训练阶段的视觉定向(研究1)与学习结果的关系。这项研究是基于最近对典型发育婴儿的研究。在研究3和研究4中，视觉定向，特别是脱离，有望预测ASD儿童的跨情境学习。这项研究的发现将为ASD和语言习得的理论提供参考，并可能对最大化现有治疗范例的有效性和设计新的干预方案促进ASD儿童的语言习得具有临床意义。 公共卫生相关性：这项研究的目标是了解自闭症谱系障碍(ASD)儿童单词学习缺陷的机制。具体地说，本研究将评估ASD儿童的跨情景词汇学习，考察先决条件学习技能的影响，并表征非社会注意与跨情景词汇学习之间的关系。这项工作将为自闭症理论和语言习得理论提供参考。研究结果也可能对最大限度地发挥现有语言治疗的有效性和为自闭症儿童设计新的干预计划具有重要意义。