Online language processing and semantic development in late-talking infants

描述（由申请人提供）：该项目的总体目标是推进我们对早期语义发展和语言处理技能如何影响早期婴儿后期语言迟缓和障碍风险的理论理解。我们将研究具有广泛语言能力的婴儿，包括那些说话晚的婴儿。晚说话婴儿是指年龄在18-24个月之间的儿童，他们在早期语言测试中低于20%。虽然许多晚说话的孩子确实赶上了同龄人，并表现出典型的语言发育，但仍有一部分孩子会被延迟，并被诊断为特殊语言障碍（SLI）。特殊语言障碍是一种影响近8%学龄儿童的语言障碍，导致一系列语言技能的困难，并可能导致负面的学术和社会后果。患有特殊语言障碍的儿童通常要到学龄才会被发现，尽管家长们经常报告说，他们从婴儿时期就开始担心语言的发展。目前迫切需要的不仅是制定措施，以确定哪些儿童在婴儿期和幼儿期有最大的语言障碍风险，而且还需要了解这些语言迟缓的机制。这些进步，串联起来，有可能产生关于早期干预如何早期语言的关键见解

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The broad goal of this project is to advance our theoretical understanding of how early semantic development and language processing skills contribute to early infant risk for later language delays and impairments. We will examine infants with broad spectrum of language abilities, including those who are late-talking. Late talking infants are a group of children between 18-24 months of age who fall below the 20th percentile in early language measures. While many late talking children do catch up with their peers and show typical language growth, a subset will remain delayed and receive a diagnosis of specific language impairment (SLI). SLI is a language disorder that affects nearly 8% of school-aged children and results in difficulties in a range of language skills, and can lead to negative academic and social consequences. Children with SLI are not often identified until they are school-aged, although parents often report concerns about language growth that start from infancy. There is an urgent need not only to develop of measures that can identify which children are at greatest risk for language impairments in infancy and toddlerhood, but also to understand the mechanisms that underlie these language delays. Such advancements, in tandem, have the potential to yield crucial insights into how early intervention for early language delays may yield improved outcomes for these children. By investigating two promising markers of later language delay (1) early fluency and accuracy in lexical recognition, and (2) early semantic structure of vocabulary development, this project is can further refine measures that have shown early promise in identifying markers of language delay, and identify whether or not these skills are casually related. We assess whether a relationship exists between these factors, and if in combination they may improve identification of children who will remain delayed in language skills at age 3. The specific objectives of this proposal are to (1) evaluate the relationship between semantic domain knowledge and real-time recognition of words from 18-30 months, (2) explore whether and how word learning, semantic development, and processing skills are related and (3) assess whether language outcomes at 36 months relate to earlier measures acquired between 18-30 months. This project will highlight the importance of the ability to efficiently recognize, interpret and learn relationships between word meanings as a marker of later language delay, and will provide insights into the value of teaching semantic relationships between words as a potential approach for early intervention.