Informing Interventions: improving the measurement of children's vocabulary knowledge and caregiver input in the Deep South

目前的项目旨在改善研究人员如何测量和描述整个南方腹地儿童在日常生活中听到的语言输入类型。该项目还将描述这种输入的可变性如何有助于儿童的词汇知识。照顾者的语言输入和儿童的词汇发展之间有着良好的联系，导致广泛的干预工作集中在修改家庭语言环境。到目前为止，关于这个主题的大多数研究都是在美国东北部和中西部的城市进行的;然而，在南方腹地，儿童听到和说的语言因文化和方言的差异而异。通过了解南方腹地低社会经济地位（SES）儿童词汇差异的变异性来源，该项目可以为现有的旨在缩小学业成绩差距的干预措施提供信息。同样至关重要的是，评估要对基于社区和基于方言的差异保持敏感。在农村，低社会经济地位社区的儿童，以及说非主流方言的儿童，如非洲裔美国人英语（AAE）和南方白色英语（SWE），经常被归类为语言延迟或障碍，而实际上，他们是语言不同的。目前的建议旨在减少这些错误的分类，a）确定哪些标准化评估最准确地衡量儿童的词汇知识（静态与动态），B）在南方腹地提供给他们的孩子的语言照顾者的类型的特征的变化，和c）确定哪些方面的语言输入儿童听到最有可能促进词汇学习。 确定测量这一人群词汇量的最佳方法，并考虑语言输入的差异如何影响词汇量的变化，将减少对他们语言能力特征的不成比例的歧视。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The current project seeks to improve how researchers measure and characterize the type of language input children throughout the Deep South hear in their day-to-day lives. The project will also characterize how variability in this input contributes to children’s vocabulary knowledge. There are well-established associations between caregiver linguistic input and children’s vocabulary development, resulting in extensive intervention efforts focused on modifying the home language environment. To date, most research on this topic has been conducted in urban cities in the northeast and midwest United States; however, the language children hear and speak in the Deep South varies based on differences in culture and dialect. By understanding the sources of variability underlying vocabulary differences among low socioeconomic status (SES) children in the Deep South, this project can inform existing interventions which seek to close academic achievement gaps. It is also critical that assessments are sensitive to community-based and dialect-based differences. Children in rural, low SES communities, and children who speak nonmainstream dialects, such as African American English (AAE) and Southern White English (SWE), are frequently classified as language delayed or disordered when really, they are language different. The current proposal seeks to reduce these misclassifications by a) identifying which standardized assessments most accurately measure children’s vocabulary knowledge (static versus dynamic), b) characterizing variability in the type of language caregivers in the Deep South provide to their children, and c) determining which aspects of the language input children hear are most likely to promote vocabulary learning. Determining the best approaches to measuring vocabulary in this population and considering how differences in language input contributes to vocabulary variability will reduce disproportionate discrimination against the characterization of their language abilities.This project is jointly funded by the Developmental Sciences Program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.