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

摘要 项目3 项目三：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广泛的早期儿童，家庭和环境的相关性 以及语言和早期识字困难和残疾的预测因素，以提高我们识别 这些儿童面临着更高的发展问题风险。虽然有很大的意识， 家族史、早期语言发育迟缓和 社会人口和环境的影响，在确定哪些因素影响人类的能力方面仍然存在相当大的差距。 具有一个或多个已知风险因素的特定儿童将通过以下方式实现规范的发育里程碑： 入学率与儿童将保持或累积高风险状态并远低于典型技能水平的比率 在学校入口处。早期识别高危儿童对防止学习能力的发展至关重要 残疾或尽量减少其持续时间和严重程度。我们专注于一组已知风险的儿童，即2- 有语言障碍、阅读障碍或两者兼而有之家族史的10岁奥尔兹，探讨如何 最大限度地提高5岁学习困难早期预测因素的敏感性和特异性。一旦从 在一个大的筛选样本中，我们将跟踪这250名儿童的发展和经历， 四年该项目的具体目标包括开发一个有理论基础的多变量模型， 改善语言和识字困难风险的早期预测，探索同时共同 发展轨迹和语言，语音意识， 记忆和早期识字技能，并利用元分析方法，以确定和定量联合收割机 早期语言和紧急识字技能发展的强有力预测因素。该项目的创新包括 一个高度经济和种族多样化的纵向样本开始时，儿童只有24个月， 复杂的多变量预测模型，包括一组广泛的儿童，家庭和家庭外 环境影响，先进的统计方法，包括机器学习和双变量潜在变化 模型，包括离线标准化和在线，处理为基础的措施的早期语言。 进一步的创新是我们计划使用综合数据分析将这些发展轨迹联系起来， 在其他三项纵向研究中，学龄前和学龄儿童的死亡率与死亡率相当。结果 建议的调查有可能通过识别学习障碍， 关键预测因素的组合，并增加了关于语言，认知和早期 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.