The role of statistical learning in the atypical language development in ASD

统计学习在自闭症谱系障碍非典型语言发展中的作用

• 批准号: 10474134
• 负责人: Zhenghan Qi
• 金额: $ 15.7万
• 依托单位: NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-09-01 至 2023-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10474134
• 关键词: 11 year old; 8 year old; Address; Adopted; Adult; Age; Auditory; Basal Ganglia; Base of the Brain; Behavioral; Behavioral Research; Brain; Child; Child Language; Cognitive; Complex; Consensus; Data; Development; Diagnosis; Exhibits; Exposure to; Foundational Skills; Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Future; Genetic Risk; Goals; Grouping; Heterogeneity; Hippocampus (Brain); Impairment; Individual; Intervention Studies; Investigation; Judgment; Language; Language Development; Language Development Disorders; Learning; Learning Skill; Light; Linguistics; Link; Measures; Methods; Modality; Neurocognitive; Online Systems; Pattern; Performance; Phenotype; Population; Process; Publishing; Reporting; Research; Research Design; Role; Sampling; Sensory; Severities; Social Environment; Stimulus; Structure; Testing; Time; Training; Variant; Visual; Vocabulary; Work; autism spectrum disorder; autistic children; base; behavioral phenotyping; cognitive process; effective intervention; individuals with autism spectrum disorder; innovation; language impairment; learning ability; neuroimaging; neuromechanism; novel; phonology; recruit; relating to nervous system; response; skills; social; specific language impairment; statistical learning; statistics; white matter

Abstract ! Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) show enormous heterogeneity in core language abilities, such as phonology and grammar. Over 50% of verbal children with ASD have borderline or impaired language. Deciphering how children with ASD learn language is important for understanding the heterogeneity of language abilities in this population, as well as for the development of more effective interventions for children with ASD who also have language difficulties. Based on decades of behavioral research in typical language acquisition, statistical learning is essential for encoding rich regularities and variability for first language development. Whereas statistical learning has been linked to typical language development and Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), existing studies investigating statistical learning in ASD lack consensus regarding whether statistical learning is impaired in ASD. Both the enormous heterogeneity of ASD population and the recently reported variation in one’s ability to learn statistics across linguistic and non-linguistic domains, as well as across sensory modalities, might have contributed to such inconclusive results. The overall goal of this research is to understand whether the language heterogeneity in ASD can be attributed to variations of statistical learning in a specific domain (linguistic vs. nonlinguistic) or modality (auditory vs. visual). Aim 1 proposes to first characterize the relationship between children’s language abilities and statistical-learning profiles across domains and modalities in a large sample of children with ASD (6 to 8 years old) and typically developing (TD) controls. Both groups will be evaluated using a novel web-based testing platform. Aim 2 will focus on probing the neural mechanisms during statistical learning in each domain and modality in ASD, and how relative strengths and weaknesses in the groupings are related to language performance. Comparing the neural responses during statistical learning tasks among children with ASD in relation to high vs. low statistical learning abilities grouped by domain and modality, the study will test whether language performance in ASD is related to domain-specific, modality-specific, or domain/modality-general neural substrates of statistical learning. The proposed study will pave the way towards a deeper understanding of the mechanisms involved in language impairment in ASD. The results will provide crucial preliminary data for future investigations aiming to elucidate the causal relationship between statistical learning ability and language learning in a longitudinal intervention study and how statistical learning profile is related to different genetic risks in children with ASD.

摘要 ! 患有自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的儿童在核心语言能力方面表现出巨大的异质性， 语音学和语法。超过50%的自闭症儿童有边缘或受损的语言。 解读ASD儿童如何学习语言对于理解语言的异质性非常重要 能力，以及为ASD儿童制定更有效的干预措施 他们也有语言障碍。基于几十年来对典型语言习得的行为研究， 统计学习对于编码第一语言发展的丰富的语义和可变性是必不可少的。 而统计学习与典型语言发展和发展性语言有关， 目前，研究ASD中统计学习的现有研究缺乏共识， 统计学习在ASD中受损。ASD人群的巨大异质性和最近的 据报道，一个人在语言和非语言领域学习统计数据的能力存在差异， 感觉方式，可能有助于这种不确定的结果。本研究的总体目标是 了解ASD的语言异质性是否可以归因于统计学习的变化， 特定领域（语言与非语言）或模态（听觉与视觉）。目标1建议首先描述 儿童的语言能力和跨领域的学习概况之间的关系， 在ASD儿童（6至8岁）和典型发育（TD）对照的大样本中进行模式。两 将使用一个新的基于网络的测试平台对各组进行评估。目标2将侧重于探测神经 ASD中每个领域和模态的统计学习机制，以及相对优势和 分组的弱点与语文成绩有关。比较了 ASD儿童的统计学习任务与高与低统计学习能力分组的关系 根据领域和情态，本研究将测试自闭症儿童的语言表现是否与领域特异性， 模态特定的，或域/模态一般的统计学习的神经基板。拟定的研究将 为更深入地了解ASD中语言障碍的机制铺平道路。的 结果将为未来旨在阐明因果关系的调查提供关键的初步数据 在纵向干预研究中统计学习能力和语言学习之间的关系，以及统计学习能力和语言学习之间的关系 学习能力与ASD儿童的不同遗传风险有关。