The development of executive function among preschoolers with SLI

描述(申请人提供)：虽然特定语言障碍(SLI)是一种发育性语言障碍，但研究人员越来越多地发现SLI儿童存在非语言认知缺陷。特别是，在这种障碍中，反映执行功能的技能可能会很弱。这些技能是控制注意力、思维和行动的高级认知过程，是调节行为所必需的，已被发现对以后的学业和职业成功至关重要。尽管它在SLI中具有潜在的重要性，但调查 执行功能的研究已经支离破碎，使得临床医生对这一领域没有一个完整的看法，这可能会影响这些儿童的管理方式。整合框架模型提供了一种方法，可以将执行功能理解为一组相关但可分离的组成部分，包括工作记忆、抑制和转移。这些技能在学龄前经历了快速发展，因此，这一时期代表着一个重要的发展时间框架，在此期间可以确定儿童执行功能的延迟。执行功能缺陷的证据导致了人们的猜测，即这些潜在的认知缺陷可能会加剧甚至解释SLI特有的语言问题。这项研究的第一个目标是在执行功能的综合框架模型的背景下，使用一组测量一般注意力、工作记忆、抑制和转移的语言和非语言任务，测试患有SLI和典型语言的学龄前儿童的执行功能。这一模型假设执行功能由相关但可分离的组成部分组成，这些组成部分是按层次发展的。这项研究的第二个目标是确定儿童的执行功能和他们的语言学习能力之间的关系。研究二和研究三将考察执行功能技能是否可以解释儿童在SLI中可能受到损害的两个领域的表现的显着差异：学习新词汇和语法学习。这种关系将在典型发育儿童和SLI儿童中进行探索，以确定两组儿童在完成语言学习任务时是否依赖相同的执行功能组件。确定SLI儿童执行功能的哪些部分是有问题的，并确定执行功能和语言学习之间的关系，对于了解SLI的认知缺陷如何与语言发育障碍有关，以及在努力改善SLI患者的治疗结果时是否应该考虑这些因素，是至关重要的。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Although specific language impairment (SLI) is a developmental language disorder, researchers have increasingly identified non-linguistic cognitive deficits among children with SLI. In particular, skills reflecting executive functions ca be weak in this disorder. These skills, which are higher-order cognitive processes that control attention, thought, and action are necessary for regulating behavior, and have been found to be crucial for later school and career success. Despite its potential importance in SLI, investigation of executive function has been fragmented, leaving clinicians without an integrated view of this area, which could influence how these children are managed. The Integrative Framework Model provides a means for understanding executive functions as a set of related but separable components including working memory, inhibition, and shifting. These skills undergo rapid development during the preschool and therefore, this period represents an important developmental timeframe during which to identify delays in children's executive functioning. Evidence of executive function deficits has led to speculation that these underlying cognitive deficits may exacerbate, or even account for, the characteristic language problems of SLI. The first goal of the proposed research is to test executive function in preschoolers with SLI and typical language within the context of the Integrative Framework Model of executive functioning using a battery of verbal and non-verbal tasks that measure general attention, working memory, inhibition, and shifting. This model posits that executive function comprises related but separable components that develop hierarchically. The second goal of this research is to identify the relationship between children's executive functioning and their language-learning ability. Studies 2 and 3 will examine whether executive function skills account for a significant amount of variance in children's performance in two domains that can be impaired in SLI: learning novel lexical items and grammatical learning. This relationship will be explored in both typically developing children and children with SLI in order to determine if children in both groups are relying on the same executive function components when completing language-learning tasks. Establishing which components of executive function are problematic for children with SLI and identifying the relationship between executive functioning and language-learning are vital for understanding how cognitive deficits in SLI may relate to disordered language development and whether these factors should be considered in efforts to improve treatment outcomes for individuals with SLI.