Computerized System for Phonemic Awareness Intervention

描述（由申请人提供）：音素意识，定义为“…注意、思考和处理口语中单个声音的能力”（国家识字研究所，2000），被认为是识字的必要技能。这些障碍的经济和生活质量成本是巨大的，不仅因为阅读困难与未来的就业能力有关，而且因为阅读困难与一系列精神疾病之间可能存在进一步的联系（Goldston et al., 2007）。这表明，音素意识干预超出了常规学前或小学课程所能教授的范围。这种干预通常以1-1次的形式提供，由专业人士（如言语语言病理学家）进行。然而，考虑到成本问题和难以获得这些服务的问题，以及认识到频繁干预会议的重要性，计算机化干预系统的使用正变得越来越普遍。这些计算机化的干预系统一直在稳步改进。然而，一个重要的缺点仍然是他们的反应方式有限，通常包括孩子使用触摸屏或指向设备从一组图片中进行选择。通过将系统针对的音位感知技能限制在那些可以通过“图片指向和点击”来挖掘的技能上，这些系统可以教授的内容范围受到限制。我们建议利用“拖放”和其他触摸响应方式来解决这一限制，目前低成本的触摸屏电脑（例如，苹果的iPad）能够处理，孩子们通过视频游戏和互联网应用程序越来越熟悉。许多当前系统的第二个缺点是它们的用户界面（例如，视觉布局，节奏）通常不能根据孩子的个人特征进行调整。鉴于音位意识问题在广泛的神经发育障碍中普遍存在，包括自闭症谱系障碍和发育性语言障碍，个体调节可能对解决个体神经认知弱点至关重要，例如记忆、注意力、视觉扫描、知觉运动协调和处理速度方面的问题。我们建议在系统中加入多个维度的个体可调性。我们的具体目标是创建一个新的视听响应处理模块，用于排序单词中的音素；将这一模块纳入一个个人可调的、自适应的（即，难度水平随着孩子的进步而动态调整）干预系统；并以20名患有发育性语言障碍或自闭症谱系障碍的儿童（他们也符合语言障碍的标准）作为参与者来评估这个系统。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Phonemic awareness, defined as "... the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds in spoken words" (National Institute for Literacy, 2000), is considered a necessary skill for literacy. The financial and quality-of-life costs of these impairments are significant, not only because of the link with reading difficulties and hence with future employability, but also because there may exist further links between reading difficulties and a range of psychiatric disorders (Goldston et al., 2007). This argues for phonemic awareness intervention beyond what can be taught in a regular pre-school or elementary school curriculum. Such intervention is typically provided in the form of 1-1 sessions with a specialized professional (e.g., a Speech Language Pathologist). However, responding to cost concerns and to poor access to these services and also recognizing the importance of frequent intervention sessions, usage of computerized intervention systems is becoming more common. These computerized intervention systems have been steadily improving. However, one significant drawback continues to be their restricted response modalities, typically consisting of the child using a touch screen or a pointing device to select from a set of pictures. By confining the phonemic awareness skills that the system addresses to those that can be tapped into via "picture-point-and-click", these systems have a restricted scope of what they can teach. We propose to address this restriction by taking advantage of "drag- and-drop" and other touch response modalities that current low-cost touch screen computers (e.g., Apple's iPad) are capable of processing and that children are increasingly more familiar with via video games and Internet applications. A second drawback of many current systems is that their user interface (e.g., visual layout, tempo) is typically not tunable to the individual characteristics of the child. Given the prevalence of phonemic awareness issues in a broad range of neurodevelopmental disorders, including Autism Spectrum Disorder and Developmental Language Disorder, individual tuning may be critical to address individual neurocognitive weaknesses, such as problems in memory, attention, visual scanning, perceptual motor coordination, and processing speed. We propose to incorporate multiple dimensions of individual tunability into the system. Our specific aims are to create a new audio-visual response-processing module for sequencing phonemes in words; to incorporate this module in an individually-tunable, adaptive (i.e., difficulty levels are dynamically adjusted as the child progresses) intervention system; and to evaluate this system with as participants 20 well- characterized children with Developmental Language Disorder or with Autism Spectrum Disorder (who, additionally, also meet criteria for a language disorder). PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Computerized intervention systems for phonemic awareness training are limited in that they typically use "picture-point-and-click" as response modality, and also are not individually tunable to a child's individual profile of neurocognitive strengths and weaknesses. The project will address these limitations by creating and evaluating a computerized "Phoneme Sequencing Tutor" system that incorporates a new "drag-and-drop" response-processing module and is individually tunable to a child's neurocognitive profile.