Executive Function and Implicit Learning in Deaf Children

描述(申请人提供)：聋儿经常不能掌握口语和读写能力，并且在学校表现不佳。尽管人工耳蜗的出现直接为聋人儿童的大脑提供了听觉输入，但言语和识字结果仍然存在很大的变数，聋人学生在大多数教育结果上仍然落后于听力正常的同龄人。最近的研究表明，这种差异在一定程度上是由于聋儿一般认知发展的缺陷。聋儿似乎在包括执行功能和内隐学习在内的几种更高水平的认知技能上受到了损害。为了解决这些问题，我们必须首先找出导致这些问题的原因。目前，无法判断这些缺陷是由于听觉障碍还是语言障碍造成的。我们建议通过对比两组先天失聪儿童的表现来区分这些假说：那些从出生起就接触手语的儿童(从未接受过人工耳蜗植入)和那些自出生以来从未接触过手语并接受过人工耳蜗术的儿童(“CI使用者”)。每一组也将被与典型的听力控制进行比较。听觉剥夺预测母语签名者和CI使用者都应该受到听力控制的损害；语言剥夺预测只有CI用户应该受到损害，母语签名者的表现与听力控制类似。如果听觉剥夺和语言剥夺都起作用，那么本族语签名者的表现应该介于CI使用者和听力控制者之间。研究结果对聋儿的临床管理有明确的指导意义。支持听觉剥夺假说的证据将呼吁扩大辅助听力设备的使用。支持语言剥夺假说的证据将呼吁扩大手语在这些儿童早期的作用，以及其他基于证据的干预措施。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Children born deaf frequently fail to master spoken language and literacy, and often underperform in school. Despite the advent of cochlear implants, which provide auditory input directly to a deaf child's brain, speech and literacy outcomes remain highly variable, and deaf students still lag behind their hearing peers on most educational outcomes. Recent research suggests that this variability is partly due to deficits in deaf children's general cognitive development. Deaf children seem to be impaired on several higher-level cognitive skills including executive function and implicit learning. In order to fix these problems, we must first identify what causes them. Currently, it is impossible to tell whether these deficits are due to auditory deprivation or to language deprivation. We propose to distinguish these hypotheses by contrasting the performance of two groups of congenitally deaf children: those who have been exposed to sign language since birth (and have never received a cochlear implant ("native signers"), and those who have not been exposed to sign language since birth and have received a cochlear implant ("CI users"). Each group will also be compared to typically hearing controls. Auditory deprivation predicts that both native signers and CI users should be impaired relative to hearing controls; language deprivation predicts that only CI users should be impaired, with native signers performing like hearing controls. If both auditory deprivation and language deprivation play a role, the performance of native signers should fall between CI users and hearing controls. The results have clear implications for the clinical management of deaf children. Evidence supporting the auditory deprivation hypothesis would call for expanding the use of assistive hearing devices. Evidence supporting the language deprivation hypothesis would call for expanding the role of sign language in these children's early years, alongside other evidence-based interventions.