Contributions of SES and Bilingualism on Early Cognitive Development

项目摘要/摘要 我的职业目标是领导一个跨学科的研究小组，调查早年 认知发展和未来学业成就的环境差异。要获取特定的 培训我将需要实现这一点，我提出了一个项目，衡量社会经济地位(SES)，潜力 调节因子、脑功能和婴儿期的记忆，以检查这两种SES 差异和双语相互独立和共同作用，影响发展轨迹。 具体地说，我和我未来的实验室将把脑电神经生理测量和发育 心理学行为范式，以调查语言环境和压力对 来自不同SES背景的单语和双语婴儿的记忆。 到目前为止，我的培训为我在评估认知能力的行为范式方面奠定了坚实的基础 发展；我的职业发展计划扩展了这些方法，在以下方面提供了基本的新培训 EEG/ERP技术、压力测量和低收入少数群体的数据收集。 因为我的目标是领导一个整合了多种方法论的实验室来解决跨学科问题 在儿童发展领域，我作为一名独立研究员的成功依赖于这些 技能。 研究项目 据估计，每5名美国6岁以下儿童中就有1名生活在贫困线以下。成长在一个 低社会保障家庭与更糟糕的健康和心理、认知、 以及一生中的情感发展。此外，众所周知，社会经济 儿童早期的劣势与对以后认知发展的一系列负面影响有关。 和学术成就。尽管一些研究表明，双语可能会缓冲认知 与社会经济劣势相关的风险，其他人则声称SES的差异可能会减弱 在认知技能方面发现的任何双语优势。很少有研究试图研究 社会支持和双语对早期认知发展的独立和联合作用 到目前为止的研究已经检查了婴儿期的这一主题。因此，拟议的研究将审查SES、多个 语言接触，以及社会经济差异促成的假想途径 早期记忆发育中的个体差异。第一项研究将检查新生儿大脑中SES的差异 来自单语和双语背景的婴儿的功能。第二项研究将测量家庭 语言环境可能在社会支持和记忆之间起中介作用。最后，我将利用神经和 评估社会支持、家庭语言环境、母亲压力、 以及生命第一年内记忆力的发展。解脱独立与互动的 SES和双语对认知发展的影响对于识别风险和 针对较低社会地位少数族裔儿童的复原力和可能的干预措施。

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT My career goal is to lead an interdisciplinary research group that investigates the influence of early environmental variations on cognitive development and future academic success. To acquire the specific training I will need to achieve this, I propose a project that measures socioeconomic status (SES), potential mediators, brain function, and memory during infancy to examine the mechanisms through which both SES disparities and bilingualism operate independently and jointly to influence developmental trajectories. Specifically, I, and my future lab, will integrate EEG neurophysiological measures and developmental psychology behavioral paradigms in order to investigate the effects of the linguistic environment and stress on memory across monolingual and bilingual infants from diverse SES backgrounds. My training to date has provided me with a strong foundation in behavioral paradigms assessing cognitive development; my career development plan expands on these methods, providing essential new training in EEG/ERP techniques, measurement of stress, and data collection with a low-income minority population. Since it is my goal to lead a lab that integrates a diverse set of methodologies to address interdisciplinary questions within the field of child development, my success as an independent researcher depends on these skills. Research Project An estimated 1 in 5 American children under the age of 6 live below the poverty line. Growing up in a lower SES home has been associated with substantially worse health and impaired psychological, cognitive, and emotional development throughout the lifespan. Further, it is well established that socioeconomic disadvantage in early childhood is associated with a range of negative effects on later cognitive development and academic achievement. Although some studies have suggested that bilingualism may buffer the cognitive risk associated with socioeconomic disadvantage, others have claimed that differences in SES may attenuate any bilingual advantages found in cognitive skills. Very few studies have attempted to examine the independent and joint effects of SES and bilingualism on early cognitive development, and furthermore no study to date has examined this topic during infancy. Thus, the proposed studies will examine SES, multiple language exposure, and hypothesized pathways through which socioeconomic disparities contribute to individual variation in early memory development. The first study will examine SES disparities in newborn brain function across infants from monolingual and bilingual backgrounds. The second study will measure the home linguistic environment as a possible mediator between SES and memory. Finally, I will utilize both neural and behavioral measures to assess the associations between SES, home linguistic environment, maternal stress, and the development of memory over the first year of life. Disentangling the independent and interacting effects of SES and bilingualism on cognitive development is crucial for identifying mechanisms of risk and resilience, and possible interventions, for lower SES minority children.