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（由申请人提供）：许多自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）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，相对知之甚少的学习机制，这些缺陷的基础上，具有重要的理论和临床意义。本研究将 通过检查统计学习和非社会视觉注意力对ASD儿童单词学习的影响来解决这一知识差距。内隐注视方法将是主要的方法，因为它们捕捉有关学习和注意力的实时信息。由于其有限的任务要求，这些方法适用于具有各种能力的儿童。许多研究只关注患有ASD的高功能儿童，从而限制了对更广泛人群的研究和临床意义。在这项研究中使用的眼睛凝视的方法有利于纳入儿童的语言和注意力的能力范围广泛。 统计学习（即，对语言规律的敏感性）是典型发育中的一种强烈的语言学习机制，但人们对自闭症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境单词学习的统计学习形式，它支持在模糊背景下的单词学习。由于ASD儿童难以使用社会线索来确定词义，因此经历了许多模糊的学习情境，因此描述他们的跨情境词汇学习能力至关重要。据推测，ASD组将有受损的跨情境学习能力，但相当大的变化将出现。具体目标2将通过检查两个先决条件来表征这种变化性-识别跨上下文反复出现的视觉刺激的能力（研究2a）和形成标签-对象关联的能力（研究2b）。在ASD组中，先决技能和跨情境学习之间存在着显著的关系。 众所周知，患有ASD的儿童表现出非典型的社会关注（例如，联合注意力），但许多儿童也表现出非社会视觉注意力的障碍。具体来说，许多患有ASD的儿童表现出非典型的注意力定向（例如，注意力的长期脱离），这可能会影响他们的能力， 使用跨情境学习机制。具体目标3（研究3）将探讨跨情境学习和一个既定的，独立的视觉定向任务之间的关系。研究4是一项探索性研究，旨在考察跨情境学习任务（研究1）训练阶段的视觉定向与学习效果之间的关系。这项研究是基于最近对典型发育婴儿的研究。研究3和4中，视觉定向，特别是脱离，有望预测ASD儿童的跨情境学习。 这项研究的结果将为ASD和语言习得的理论提供信息，并可能对最大限度地提高现有治疗模式的有效性和设计新的干预方案以促进ASD儿童的语言习得具有临床意义。 公共卫生相关性：本研究的目的是了解自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童词汇学习缺陷的机制。具体来说，本研究将评估自闭症谱系障碍儿童的跨情境单词学习，检查先决学习技能的影响，并描述非社会注意力和跨情境单词学习之间的关系。这项工作将为自闭症理论和语言习得理论提供信息。研究结果也可能对最大限度地提高现有语言治疗的有效性和为ASD儿童设计新的干预计划具有影响。