The Interface Between the Lexicon and Morphology in SLI

描述（由申请人提供）：申请人的职业目标是成为语言习得和特定语言障碍（SLI）领域的领先研究人员。为此，计划在高级统计和方法技术领域增加课程（例如，纵向和临床设计），语言学中的高级主题（即，衍生形态学）和花岗岩/研究传播。此外，候选人将完成一项研究培训计划。候选人研究的长期目标是通过调查词汇和形态学之间的界面来理解SLI的本质。SLI儿童特别容易受到形态句法缺陷的影响，并且难以学习新单词，尤其是动词。目前尚不清楚的是，词汇和形态句法在发展过程中如何相互作用。具体来说，它是未知的，无论是质量的词汇表征影响形态句法在典型的发展中国家的儿童和儿童与SLI。另一个关键问题是确定有效的方法来提高SLI儿童的语素产生率。很少有研究考虑如何操纵词汇特征的动词用来处理一个特定的语素影响临床收益的语素生产。研究1的目标是确定词汇特征，即邻域密度（即，与给定单词在语音上相似的单词的数量）影响词素产生（即，第三人称单数），通过典型的发展中国家的儿童和儿童与SLI的句子模仿和自发的启发任务。研究2的目标是确定处理动词的邻域密度的操纵是否是增加语素产生的增益的可行方法（即，第三人称单数）的治疗和未治疗的动词由典型的发展中国家的儿童和儿童与SLI。由此产生的研究结果将确定在何种程度上的词汇影响词素生产，以及在词素生产的收益在临床治疗。这项研究的公共卫生利益是，SLI儿童的语言缺陷是有据可查的，但很少有人知道如何有效地计划干预，以最大限度地提高收益，很少注意到治疗动词的词汇特征。确定临床方法，最大限度地提高治疗收益可能会防止或减少未来的学术失败。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The career goal of the applicant is to become a leading researcher in the area of language acquisition and specific language impairment (SLI). To that end, additional coursework is planned in the areas of advanced statistical and methodological techniques (e.g., longitudinal and clinical designs), advanced topics in linguistics (i.e., derivational morphology), and grantsmanship/research dissemination. In addition, the candidate will complete a research training plan. The long-term goal of the candidate's research is to understand the nature of SLI by investigating the interface between the lexicon and morphology. Children with SLI are particularly vulnerable to deficits in morphosyntax and have difficulty learning new words, especially verbs. What is unclear is how the lexicon and morphosyntax might interact during development. Specifically, it is unknown whether the quality of lexical representations impacts morphosyntax in typically developing children and children with SLI. An additional critical issue is to identify effective methods for increasing the rate of morpheme production in children with SLI. Few studies have considered how manipulating lexical characteristics of the verbs used to treat a specific morpheme impacts clinical gains in morpheme production. The goal of Study 1 is to determine whether a lexical characteristic, namely neighborhood density (i.e., the number of words that are phonologically similar to a given word) influences morpheme production (i.e., third person singular) by typically developing children and children with SLI in sentence imitation and spontaneous elicitation tasks. The goal of Study 2 is to determine whether manipulation of the neighborhood density of treated verbs is a viable method for increasing gains in morpheme production (i.e., third person singular) for treated and untreated verbs by typically developing children and children with SLI. The resulting findings will determine the extent to which the lexicon influences morpheme production as well as gains in morpheme production in clinical treatment. The public health benefit of this research is that language deficits in children with SLI are well documented but little is known about how to effectively plan intervention to maximize gains with little attention being paid to lexical characteristics of treated verbs. Identifying clinical methods that maximize gains in treatment may prevent or minimize future academic failure.