Cognitive Processing and Sentence Comprehension in SLI

描述（由申请人提供）：对特定语言障碍（SLI）儿童的研究主要集中在他们的表达缺陷上。相对于我们对这些孩子的表达困难的理解，他们的接受问题是知之甚少。这导致了SLI的理论解释不够详细，治疗SLI的有效干预措施有限，语言干预效果也不太好。荟萃分析、系统综述和临床试验的结果表明，语言干预对语言理解的影响小于对语言产生的影响（Cirrin & Gillam，2008; Law et al.，2004; Bishop等人，2006年）。最近，伦纳德（2009）认为，无法处理输入中的语言信息可能在SLI儿童的理解困难中发挥突出作用。 SLI儿童的句子理解问题是否反映了语言系统的缺陷（特定领域观点）或认知处理的一般缺陷（领域一般观点），存在争议。这个大规模项目的主要目标是系统地确定哪个帐户提供了更好的描述和解释模型来表征SLI儿童的句子理解。 拟议的五年项目将在五项综合研究中处理两个相关的具体目标。450名儿童将参与：150名SLI儿童（年龄9岁;0-11岁;11岁），150名年龄/非语言智商匹配（CA）儿童，以及150名短期记忆和词汇（YMV）匹配的年幼儿童。目的1采用心理测量学的方法，探讨几种认知加工机制（控制注意、词汇提取、提取干扰、短时记忆、工作记忆和加工速度）与非规范句（研究1-2）或规范句（研究3-4）理解之间的关系。我们假设，建模结果将支持域一般帐户。作为这一目标的一部分，我们还将研究是否类似的认知机制的基础上的句子理解儿童SLI和CA儿童（不同的一套可能subserving非规范和规范的句子）。目的2更具体地检查工作记忆提取在非规范句子处理，以确定是否与SLI的儿童失败或更慢地重新激活一个先前的成分（NP 1）在非规范句子处理。我们假设他们会慢相对于CA儿童，支持域一般的观点。 总的来说，结果可能会导致四个高影响力的影响领域的SLI。首先，一个全新的认知加工和句子理解之间的关系的理论理解可能会出现。第二，正常成人和SLI句子理解模型可以合并成一个连贯的发展框架。第三，将扩大SLI儿童的临床认知语言概况。第四，批判性的见解可能会出现，其中认知机制可以在旨在提高SLI儿童语言理解的替代语言治疗中成为目标。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Research on children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) has primarily focused on their expressive deficits. Relative to our understanding of these children's expressive difficulties, their receptive problems are poorly understood. This has led to underspecified theoretical accounts of SLI, a limited array of effective interventions to treat them, and less than favorable language intervention outcomes. The results of meta-analyses, systematic reviews, and clinical trials indicate that language intervention has a smaller effect on language comprehension than on language production (Cirrin & Gillam, 2008; Law et al., 2004; Bishop, et al., 2006). Recently, Leonard (2009) has argued that an inability to process linguistic information in the input is likely to play a prominent role in the comprehension difficulties of children with SLI. Debate exits as to whether the sentence comprehension problems in children with SLI reflect a deficit in the language system (the domain-specific view) or a general deficit in cognitive processing (the domain-general view). The primary goal of this large-scale project is to systematically determine which account provides the better descriptive and explanatory model to characterize sentence comprehension in children with SLI. The proposed 5-year project will address two related specific aims in five integrated studies. 450 children will participate: 150 children with SLI (ages 9;0-11;11), 150 age/nonverbal IQ matched (CA) children, and 150 younger children matched for short-term memory and vocabulary (YMV). Aim 1 employs a psychometric approach to investigate the relationship between several cognitive processing mechanisms (controlled attention, lexical retrieval, retrieval interference, short-term memory, working memory, and processing speed) and the comprehension of noncanonical sentences (Studies 1-2) or canonical sentences (Studies 3-4). We hypothesize that the modeling results will support the domain-general account. As part of this aim, we will also examine whether similar sets of cognitive mechanisms underlie sentence comprehension in children with SLI and CA children (with different a set likely subserving noncanonical and canonical sentences). Aim 2 more specifically examines working memory retrieval in noncanonical sentence processing to determine whether children with SLI fail or are slower to reactivate a prior constituent (NP1) during noncanonical sentence processing. We hypothesize they will be slower relative to CA children, supporting the domain-general view. Overall, the results may lead to four high impact implications for the field of SLI. First, a fundamentally new theoretical understanding of the relationship between cognitive processing and sentence comprehension may emerge. Second, models of normal adult and SLI sentence comprehension may be merged into a coherent developmental framework. Third, clinical cognitive-linguistic profiles of children with SLI will be expanded. And fourth, critical insights may emerge into which cognitive mechanisms could be targeted in alternative language treatments designed to improve the language comprehension of children with SLI.