Basis of Reading Deficits in African-American Children

描述（由申请人提供）：非洲裔美国儿童的阅读障碍是一个长期存在的、影响很大的公共卫生问题。尽管阅读科学和RD取得了重大进步，但这些阅读困难仍然有增无减。在关注有阅读习得困难的目标人群的研究中，AA儿童的代表性不足，而在关注RD或LD的研究中几乎没有。本项目旨在提高我们对AA儿童阅读困难机制的认识，使我们能够区分表现出学习或阅读障碍的AA儿童与其他来源（例如环境）的阅读困难。本研究旨在通过采用互补方法建立和评估1 -5年级AA儿童典型和非典型阅读发展模型，探讨AA儿童可能或可能不是由RD引起的阅读困难的机制。本研究的具体目的是：为研究一般语言能力、方言变异、认知能力和贫困对阅读障碍的影响，本研究以1-5年级中低经济地位背景的不同阅读能力的AA儿童为研究对象，采用交叉序列纵向抽样进行研究。我们将建立一个AA儿童阅读发展的多层次混合效应（HLM）模型，旨在评估这些变量对阅读发展的相对贡献。具体目标2：为了区分患有潜在LD的RD儿童与其他因素导致的RD儿童，我们将对目标1中的样本进行新的分析。我们将使用潜在类别模型来提高我们识别有阅读障碍儿童的能力，并将他们与可能有非阅读障碍特征的阅读困难的同龄人区分开来。具体目标3：探索一般语言能力和口语方言对阅读习得基本组成部分的因果影响。我们将使用计算模型和控制实验任务，这些任务来自可能存在非阅读障碍特征的阅读困难的同龄人。具体目标3：探索一般语言能力和口语方言对阅读习得基本组成部分的因果影响。我们将使用计算建模和控制实验任务来检验几个假设。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Reading failure among African American children is a longstanding, high impact public health concern. Despite significant advancements in the science of reading and RD these reading difficulties have continued unabated. AA children are underrepresented in studies focused on targeted populations that have significant difficulty with reading acquisition, and are nearly absent in studies focused on RD or LD. This project seeks to advance our knowledge of the mechanisms underlying reading difficulty in AA children, allowing us to distinguish AA children who exhibit a learning or reading disability from those whose reading difficulties arise from other sources (e.g., environment). The proposed studies are designed to investigate mechanisms by which AA children experience reading difficulty that may or may not be due to RD, by using complementary methods to build and evaluate models of typical and atypical reading development among AA children in 1st-5th grades. The specific aims are: Specific Aim 1: To examine the contribution of general verbal ability, dialectal variation, cognitive abilities and poverty to RD, we will investigate a cross-sequential, longitudinal sample of AA children from low and middle SES backgrounds with a range of reading abilities in grades 1-5. We will build a multilevel, mixed-effects (HLM) model of reading development in AA children designed to evaluate the relative contributions of these variables to reading development. Specific Aim 2: To distinguish RD children with underlying LD from those whose RD owes to other factors, we will conduct novel analyses of the sample from Aim 1. We will use latent class modeling to improve our ability to identify children who have RD and to distinguish them from peers who may have reading difficulties not characteristic of RD. Specific Aim 3: To explore the causal effects of general verbal ability and spoken dialect on essential components of reading acquisition. We will use computational modeling and controlled experimental tasks from peers who may have reading difficulties not characteristic of RD. Specific Aim 3: To explore the causal effects of general verbal ability and spoken dialect on essential components of reading acquisition. We will use computational modeling and controlled experimental tasks to test several hypotheses.