Longitudinal Studies of Spoken Word Recognition and Language Development

口语识别与语言发展的纵向研究

• 批准号: 8236601
• 负责人: JAMES L MORGAN
• 金额: $ 60.31万
• 依托单位: BROWN UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-04-01 至 2017-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8236601
• 关键词: Acoustics; Address; Adult; Affect; Age; Birth; Characteristics; Chinese People; Cognitive; Cohort Studies; Complex; Comprehension; Development; Endogenous Factors; Enrollment; Environment; Exogenous Factors; Goals; Growth; Hearing; Individual; Infant; Knowledge; Language; Language Delays; Language Development; Language Disorders; Learning; Life; Linguistics; Literature; Longitudinal Studies; Low Birth Weight Infant; Measures; Mediating; Nursery Schools; Outcome; Pathway interactions; Performance; Phonetics; Plant Roots; Play; Population; Pregnancy; Premature Infant; Research; Retrieval; Risk; Role; Sampling; Schools; Semantics; Speech; Speech Perception; Structure; Testing; Variant; Vocabulary; combinatorial; experience; infancy; infant monitoring; skills; speech processing; syntax; theories

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Spoken word recognition lies at the root of language comprehension and acquisition. Recognition of known words (numbering in the tens of thousands for adults) is prerequisite for retrieval and storage of semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic information associated with those words. Typically, such recognition is fast, accurate, robust, and effortless. Yet the perceptual computations required are highly complex, as anyone listening to speakers conversing in an unfamiliar language begins to discern: what one hears is a babble lacking readily identifiable words. Nevertheless, within the first year of life, infants must develop the skills needed for spoken word recognition. Such skills are prerequisite to further acquisition of language, for if a language learner cannot break input utterances into their constituent words, it will be impossible to learn how these words fit together or what individual words mean. Research proposed in this application focuses on elucidating precursors to, and predictions from, development of spoken word recognition. This project seeks to explore causal pathways from early cognitive development, basic speech perception skills, and language experience to development of spoken word recognition and early language knowledge, and hence to pre-school language outcomes. A pair of integrative longitudinal studies will measure infants from birth to 24 months on batteries of tests assessing cognitive and linguistic development; language environments will also be measured. A further battery of tests at 36 months will assess pre-school language outcomes. One longitudinal study will enroll full-term infants to establish normative baselines. The second, concurrent study will enroll preterm infants (<28 weeks gestation): language delays and deficits are associated with low birth weight, and preterm infants receive markedly different early input, but it is not known whether the causal structure of language development differs across the two populations. Specific questions to be addressed include: What is the relation between early (segmental and prosodic) discriminative and representational abilities and development of spoken word recognition skills? Are effects of cognitive development on language outcomes in pre-school years mediated by early spoken word recognition skills? How does absolute performance on cognitive and linguistic measures at specific ages in infancy compare to changes in such performance across ages (growth curves) with regard to predicting pre-school language outcomes? How do variations in informational quality and quantity affect early speech processing, development of spoken word recognition, and pre-school language outcomes? PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Anyone who has listened to fluent conversation in an unfamiliar language can readily attest that recognizing spoken words is a far from trivial skill, but without this skill it is impossible either to comprehend speech or to master combinatorial or compositional 'higher' levels of language. Language deficits and delays impede intellectual development for hundreds of thousands of individuals. This application incorporates two longitudinal studies that examine the relation between development of spoken word recognition skills and pre-school language outcomes. One explores receptive language development in healthy full-term infants, examining how such development may be determined by both endogenous factors, including cognitive abilities, speech perception skills, and fluctuations in infants' functional hearing, and exogenous factors, such as input quantity. A second, concurrent study explores language development in preterm infants, a population known to be at risk for language delays. The overarching goals of these studies is to elucidate the pathways from early cognitive development, basic speech perception skills, and language experience to development of spoken word recognition and early language knowledge, and hence to pre-school language outcomes, and to examine how these pathways may differ for the two populations to be studied.

描述（申请人提供）：口语识别是语言理解和习得的基础。识别已知单词（成人有数万个）是检索和存储与这些单词相关的语义、句法和语用信息的先决条件。通常，这种识别是快速、准确、稳健且轻松的。然而，所需的感知计算非常复杂，因为任何人听到用不熟悉的语言交谈的人都会开始辨别：所听到的是缺乏易于识别的单词的胡言乱语。然而，在生命的第一年里，婴儿必须发展口语单词识别所需的技能。这些技能是进一步习得语言的先决条件，因为如果语言学习者不能将输入的话语分解为其组成词，就不可能学习这些词如何组合在一起或单个词的含义。本申请提出的研究重点是阐明口语单词识别发展的前兆和预测。该项目旨在探索从早期认知发展、基本言语感知技能和语言体验到口语单词识别和早期语言知识发展，进而到学前语言成果的因果路径。两项综合纵向研究将通过一系列评估认知和语言发展的测试来测量从出生到 24 个月大的婴儿；语言环境也将被测量。 36 个月时进行的一系列测试将评估学前语言成绩。一项纵向研究将招募足月婴儿来建立规范基线。第二项同期研究将纳入早产儿（妊娠<28周）：语言发育迟缓和缺陷与低出生体重有关，早产儿接受的早期输入明显不同，但尚不清楚两个人群的语言发展因果结构是否不同。要解决的具体问题包括：早期（片段和韵律）辨别和表征能力与口语单词识别技能的发展之间有什么关系？学龄前认知发展对语言结果的影响是否由早期口语单词识别技能介导？在预测学前语言结果方面，婴儿期特定年龄的认知和语言测量的绝对表现与跨年龄段的表现变化（生长曲线）有何不同？信息质量和数量的变化如何影响早期语音处理、口语单词识别的发展和学前语言成果？ 公共健康相关性：任何听过用不熟悉的语言进行流利对话的人都可以轻易地证明，识别口语单词绝非易事，但如果没有这项技能，就不可能理解语音或掌握组合或组合“更高”水平的语言。语言缺陷和发育迟缓阻碍了数十万人的智力发展。该应用程序包含两项纵向研究，研究口语单词识别技能的发展与学前语言成果之间的关系。其中一项研究探讨了健康足月婴儿的接受性语言发展，研究了这种发展如何由内源性因素（包括认知能力、言语感知技能和婴儿功能性听力的波动）和外源性因素（例如输入量）决定。另一项同时进行的研究探讨了早产儿的语言发育，早产儿是已知有语言发育迟缓风险的人群。这些研究的总体目标是阐明从早期认知发展、基本言语感知技能和语言经验到口语单词识别和早期语言知识发展，进而到学前语言结果的途径，并研究这些途径对于两个待研究人群有何不同。