Resilience and risk in word inferencing and vocabulary growth for grade schoolers from low socioeconomic status homes

在小学，学习新单词可以让孩子们接触、思考和讨论新想法，并建立一个健全的、适合年龄的词汇，以支持整个学校的阅读理解。有证据表明，平均而言，来自社会经济地位较低家庭的孩子在课堂上从书面材料中学习新单词更困难，尽管这是否会影响到从听觉材料中学习还不清楚。此外，一些来自类似环境的孩子无视这种可能性，在单词学习方面表现出色。在这个项目中，我们使用大脑和行为测量来确定哪些孩子在单词学习方面表现不佳，在何种环境下（听觉与书面），以及原因。根据这些数据，我们可以提供量身定制的学习计划，帮助支持所有小学孩子的词汇增长，让每个人都能充分发挥潜力。本研究的目的是利用行为和大脑测量来研究一组来自社会经济地位较低家庭的儿童在听觉和书写方式下的单词推理过程（单词学习的关键组成部分）的差异，以及这些差异对6个月和1年后词汇增长的影响。我们研究了2个年龄组的250名儿童：8-9岁和11-12岁。3 rd-7th年级)。这是阅读能力大大提高的年龄，“阅读学习”的期望在学术界变得至关重要。当他们的脑电图被记录下来时，孩子们完成了语言和认知评估，以及听觉和书面文字推理任务。这是通过父母完成的家庭环境调查来衡量的。在6个月和1年后进行评估，以衡量词汇量的增长。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

In grade school, learning new words allows children to access, think about, and discuss new ideas and building a robust, age appropriate vocabulary supports reading comprehension throughout school. Evidence shows that children from low socioeconomic homes, on average, have more difficulty learning new words from written materials in the classroom, though whether this carries over to learning from auditory materials is unclear. Further, some children from similar environments defy the odds and excel at word learning. In this project we use brain and behavioral measures to identify which children struggle vs excel at word learning, in which context (auditory vs written) and why. From this data we can provide tailored learning plans to help support vocabulary growth for all children in grade school, allowing each to reach their full potential. The objective of this proposal is to use behavioral and brain measures to study variability in the process of word inferencing (a key component of word learning) in the auditory and written modalities within a group of children from lower SES homes, and the implications of those differences for vocabulary growth 6 months and 1 year later. We study 250 children across 2 age groups: ages 8-9 and 11-12 (approx. 3rd-7th grade). These are ages when reading greatly improves, and expectations of “reading to learn” become critical across academics. Children complete language and cognitive assessments as well as auditory and written word inferencing tasks as their EEG is recorded. This is measured in relation to parent-completed home environment surveys. Assessments are conducted after 6 months and 1 year to measure vocabulary growth.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.