Executive Function and Implicit Learning in Deaf Children

描述（由申请人提供）：天生失聪的儿童经常无法掌握口语和识字，并且经常在学校表现不佳。尽管人工耳蜗的出现，直接向失聪儿童的大脑提供听觉输入，但语言和识字结果仍然存在很大差异，失聪学生在大多数教育成果上仍然落后于听力正常的同龄人。最近的研究表明，这种差异部分是由于聋人儿童的一般认知发展的缺陷。聋儿似乎在几个更高层次的认知技能上受到损害，包括执行功能和内隐学习。为了解决这些问题，我们必须首先找出原因。目前，还无法判断这些缺陷是由于听觉剥夺还是语言剥夺。我们建议通过对比两组先天性耳聋儿童的表现来区分这些假设：那些自出生以来一直接触手语的人（从未接受过人工耳蜗植入（“原生手语者”）），以及那些自出生以来没有接触手语并接受人工耳蜗植入（“CI用户”）的人。每组还将与典型的听力对照组进行比较。听觉剥夺预测，本地签名者和CI用户应受损相对于听力控制;语言剥夺预测，只有CI用户应受损，与本地签名者一样执行听力控制。如果听觉剥夺和语言剥夺都起作用，本机签名者的性能应该落在CI用户和听力控制之间。研究结果对聋儿的临床管理具有明确的意义。支持听觉剥夺假说的证据将要求扩大辅助听力设备的使用。支持语言剥夺假说的证据将要求扩大手语在这些儿童早期的作用，以及其他基于证据的干预措施。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Children born deaf frequently fail to master spoken language and literacy, and often underperform in school. Despite the advent of cochlear implants, which provide auditory input directly to a deaf child's brain, speech and literacy outcomes remain highly variable, and deaf students still lag behind their hearing peers on most educational outcomes. Recent research suggests that this variability is partly due to deficits in deaf children's general cognitive development. Deaf children seem to be impaired on several higher-level cognitive skills including executive function and implicit learning. In order to fix these problems, we must first identify what causes them. Currently, it is impossible to tell whether these deficits are due to auditory deprivation or to language deprivation. We propose to distinguish these hypotheses by contrasting the performance of two groups of congenitally deaf children: those who have been exposed to sign language since birth (and have never received a cochlear implant ("native signers"), and those who have not been exposed to sign language since birth and have received a cochlear implant ("CI users"). Each group will also be compared to typically hearing controls. Auditory deprivation predicts that both native signers and CI users should be impaired relative to hearing controls; language deprivation predicts that only CI users should be impaired, with native signers performing like hearing controls. If both auditory deprivation and language deprivation play a role, the performance of native signers should fall between CI users and hearing controls. The results have clear implications for the clinical management of deaf children. Evidence supporting the auditory deprivation hypothesis would call for expanding the use of assistive hearing devices. Evidence supporting the language deprivation hypothesis would call for expanding the role of sign language in these children's early years, alongside other evidence-based interventions.