Project III: Understanding Risk for Early Language and Literacy Difficulties in Young Children

摘要 项目3 项目III：了解幼儿早期语言和识字困难的风险 拟议的研究项目调查了一系列与早期儿童、家庭和环境相关的因素。 以及语言和早期识字困难和残疾的预测指标，以提高我们识别 儿童患这些发育问题的风险更高。尽管有很大的意识到 家族史，早期语言延迟，以及 在社会人口和环境的影响下，在确定哪些是 具有一个或多个已知危险因素的特定儿童将通过以下方式达到标准的发育里程碑 入学人数与哪些儿童将保持或增加高危状态并远低于典型技能水平 在学校入学时。及早识别高危儿童对于防止学习能力的发展至关重要 或将其持续时间和严重程度降至最低。我们关注的是一群处于已知风险中的儿童，即2- 有语言障碍或阅读障碍或两者兼有的家族史的儿童，探索如何 最大限度地提高5岁学习困难早期预测指标的敏感度和特异度。 在一个大的筛查样本中，我们将追踪这250名儿童的发展和经历 四年了。该项目的具体目标包括开发一个理论上有基础的多变量模型来 提高对语言和识字困难风险的早期预测，探索同时 语言、语音意识、语言与语言之间的发展轨迹及其相互影响 记忆和早期识字技能，并利用元分析方法识别和定量结合 对早期语言和新兴识字技能发展的有力预测。该项目的创新包括 一项高度经济和种族差异的纵向样本在儿童只有24个月时开始， 复杂的多变量预测模型，包括广泛的儿童、家庭和家庭外预测模型 环境影响，包括机器学习和双变量潜伏性变化在内的高级统计方法 模型，并纳入早期语言的离线标准化和在线基于处理的措施。 另一项创新是我们计划使用综合数据分析将这些项目的发展轨迹 与其他三项纵向研究中的学龄前儿童和学龄儿童进行比较。评选结果 拟议的调查有可能通过确定 关键预测因素的组合和增加关于语言、认知和早期相互作用的知识 在关键的早期发展阶段的识字技能。

ABSTRACT Project 3 Project III: Understanding Risk for Early Language and Literacy Difficulties in Young Children The proposed research project investigates a broad array of early child, familial, and environmental correlates and predictors of language and early literacy difficulties and disabilities to improve our capacity to identify children at heightened risk for these developmental problems. Although there is significant awareness of the risk to typical language and early literacy development posed by familial history, early language delay, and socio-demographic and environmental influences, there remains a sizable gap in the ability to identify which specific children with one or more known risk factors will achieve normative developmental milestones by school entry versus which children will remain at or accrue high-risk status and be well below typical skill levels at school entry. Earlier identification of high-risk children is crucial to prevent the development of learning disabilities or to minimize their duration and severity. We focus on a group of children at known risk, namely 2- year olds with a familial history of language impairment, reading impairment, or both, to explore how to maximize the sensitivity and specificity of early predictors of learning difficulties at age 5. Once selected from within a large screened sample, we will trace the development and experiences of these 250 children across four years. Specific aims of the project include developing a theoretically-grounded multivariate model to improve early prediction of risk for both language and literacy difficulties, exploring the simultaneous co- developmental trajectories and potential reciprocal influences between language, phonological awareness, memory and early literacy skills, and utilizing meta-analytic methods to identify and quantitatively combine robust predictors of early language and emergent literacy skill development. Innovations of the project include a highly economically and ethnically diverse longitudinal sample initiated when children are just 24 months, complex multivariate prediction models including an extensive set of child, familial, and outside the home environmental influences, advanced statistical methods including machine learning and bivariate latent change models, and inclusion of both off-line standardized and on-line, processing-based measures of early language. A further innovation is our plan to use integrated data analysis to link the developmental trajectory of these children with that of preschool and school age children in three other longitudinal studies. Results of the proposed investigations have the potential to improve early identification of learning disabilities by identifying combinations of key predictors and add to knowledge regarding the interplay of language, cognitive and early literacy skills in a critical early developmental period.