Basis of Reading Deficits in African-American Children

描述(由申请者提供)：非裔美国儿童中的阅读障碍是一个长期存在的、影响很大的公共卫生问题。尽管阅读和研究的科学有了很大的进步，但阅读的困难仍然有增无减。在针对目标人群的研究中，AA儿童的代表性不足，这些人群在阅读习得方面有很大困难，而且在关注RD或LD的研究中几乎没有出现。本项目旨在加深我们对再生障碍性贫血儿童阅读困难的潜在机制的认识，使我们能够将表现出学习或阅读障碍的再生障碍性贫血儿童与那些由其他原因(例如环境)引起的阅读障碍儿童区分开来。本研究旨在探讨再生障碍性贫血儿童阅读困难的发生机制，并采用互补性方法建立和评价1-5年级再生障碍性贫血儿童的典型和非典型阅读发展模型。具体目标是：具体目标1：为了考察一般言语能力、方言变异、认知能力和贫困对RD的贡献，我们将跨序列、纵向地调查1-5年级具有不同阅读能力的中低SES背景的AA儿童。我们将建立一个多水平，混合效应(HLM)的阅读发展模型，旨在评估这些变量对阅读发展的相对贡献。具体目标2：为了将患有潜在学习障碍的RD儿童与其他因素导致的RD儿童区分开来，我们将对目标1的样本进行新的分析。我们将使用潜在班级模型来提高我们识别患有RD儿童的能力，并将他们与可能有阅读困难的同龄人区分开来。具体目标3：探讨一般言语能力和口语方言对阅读习得要素的因果影响。我们将使用计算模型和受控实验任务，这些任务来自那些可能有阅读困难而不是RD特征的同龄人。具体目标3：探讨一般言语能力和口语方言对阅读习得要素的因果影响。我们将使用计算建模和受控实验任务来验证几个假设。

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.