Executive Functions and Early Word Learning/Language Development

以前的语言习得研究表明，儿童习得名词比动词更快（Gentler，1982）。倾向于指代具体对象的名词与动词有着根本的不同，动词倾向于指代概念上复杂的、短暂的动作，如“跳跃”和“思考”（Golinkoff & Hirsh-Pasek，2008），或对象之间的功能关系（例如，“投掷”可能指的是“手”和“球”之间的关系）。有证据表明，幼儿可能具有偏见，导致他们专注于词所指对象的感知特征（例如形状），而不是重要的关系信息（Merriman等人，1993），解释了为什么名词--可以根据它们的感知特征很容易地识别--在幼儿期比动词更快地获得（麦克多诺等，2011年）。我想调查的偏见发生在早期的文字学习是如何与执行功能，如抑制控制。在多大程度上，控制抑制反应（例如关注词所指的重要关系特征，而不是感知特征）可以帮助儿童更快地获得语言？我的目标是从伯明翰学校招募2-5岁的成人对照组和儿童参与者-其中许多人我已经从我在伯明翰教育心理学服务（EPS）工作的时间里与他们建立了工作关系。抑制控制和执行功能可以使用标准化神经心理学测试（例如，执行功能行为评定量表-成人和学龄前版本）进行评估。执行功能分数和根据知觉或关系信息概括新单词的能力之间的相关性可以被探索。这项研究将进一步加深我们对儿童语言习得和执行功能中的偏差以及它们之间可能存在的关系的理解。

Previous research into language acquisition has shown that children acquire nouns more rapidly than they acquire verbs (Gentler, 1982). Nouns, which tend to refer to concrete objects are fundamentally different from verbs, which tend to refer to conceptually complicated, ephemeral actions like 'jumping' and 'thinking' (Golinkoff & Hirsh-Pasek, 2008), or functional relationships between objects (e.g. 'throwing' might refer to a relationship between a 'hand' and a 'ball'). Evidence suggests that young children may possess biases which lead them to focus on perceptual features of word-referents (e.g. the shape), rather than on important relational-information (Merriman et al., 1993), explaining why nouns - which can be easily identified on the basis of their perceptual features, are acquired more rapidly in early childhood than verbs (McDonough et al., 2011). I would like to investigate how biases occurring in early word-learning are related to executive functions, such as inhibitory control. To what extent might control over inhibitory responses (such as attending to the important relational features of a word-referent rather than the perceptual features) help a child to acquire language more rapidly? I would aim to recruit adult controls and child participants aged between 2-5 years-of-age from Birmingham schools - many of whom I have developed a working relationship with from my time spent on placement with the Birmingham Educational Psychology Service (EPS). Inhibitory control and executive function could be assessed using standardised neuropsychological tests (e.g. the Behaviour Rating Inventory of Executive Function - Adult and Preschool version). A correlation could be explored between executive function scores and the ability to generalise novel words according to perceptual or relational information. This research would further our understanding of biases in child language acquisition, executive functions, and the possible relationship between them.