Behavioral and Neuroimaging Studies of Bilingual Reading

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议研究的总体目标是了解双语儿童和成人阅读的核心认知、语音和句法过程的发展。在这里，我们使用最先进的神经成像和行为技术研究双语阅读和伴随的认知能力的神经发育、神经系统和功能神经解剖学。在教育、科学和双语家庭中，关于何时（什么年龄）让幼儿接触两种语言，以及何时以及如何最好地教这些孩子在他们的两种阅读系统中阅读，存在许多争议，我们在这里讨论：(1)双语语言接触是否会产生伴随的认知优势（如选择性增强注意力和抑制能力），它的基础是什么，它是否积极地转移到其他学习领域，如阅读？(2)双语儿童的两种阅读系统是按顺序（先一种，然后另一种）还是同时（同时）进行？(3)双语儿童和成人的认知注意和抑制、语音和句法加工构成两种语言阅读的核心，其背后的神经发育时间进程、功能神经解剖学和神经系统是什么？为了以一种最普遍的方式回答这些问题，我们的研究涉及美国和加拿大四个不同地区的儿童和成人，他们使用五种不同的世界语言，包括手语。这些研究的结果将为年轻双语者熟练阅读习得的众多变量（认知、语音、句法）和这些重要变量的发展轨迹提供基础的“循证”知识，以预测更好的阅读结果。这些研究可以告诉我们何时以及如何最好地教授年轻的双语儿童阅读，从而直接使双语儿童的教师、临床医生和父母受益，并且它们可能从根本上影响美国阅读教学的教育政策。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overarching aim of the proposed research is to understand READING--and the development of the core cognitive, phonological, and syntactic processes that underlie reading-in BILINGUAL children, and adults. Here we investigate the neurodevelopment, neural systems, and functional neuroanatomy of bilingual reading and concomitant cognitive abilities using state-of-the-art neuroimaging and behavioral techniques. Much controversy exists in education, science, and bilingual homes regarding when (what age) to expose young children to two languages and when and how best to teach such children to read in each of their two reading systems, which we address here: (1) Does bilingual language exposure give rise to concomitant cognitive advantages (such as select enhancement of attention and inhibition abilities), what is its basis, and does it positively transfer to other domains of learning such as reading? (2) Is it best to teach bilingual children their two reading systems sequentially (first one, then the other) or at the same time (simultaneously)? (3) What is the neurodevelopmental time course, functional neuroanatomy, and neural systems underlying bilingual children and adults' cognitive attention and inhibition, phonological and syntactic processing that form the heart of reading in each of their two languages? To answer these questions in a manner that is most widely generalizable, our studies involve children and adults across 4 distinct regions of the United States and Canada, whom use among 5 different world languages, including sign languages. The results of these studies will provide fundamental "evidence-based" knowledge about the multitude of variables (cognitive, phonological, syntactic) underlying skilled reading acquisition in young bilinguals and the developmental trajectories of these important variables to predict better reading outcome. These studies may directly benefit teachers, clinicians, and parents of bilingual children by informing us about when and how best to teach reading to young bilinguals, and they may fundamentally impact educational policy on the teaching of reading in the United States.