PROJECT 11: DEVELOPMENT OF VERBAL WORKING MEMORY STRATEGIES IN YOUNG CHILDREN

项目摘要/摘要 项目11：幼儿言语工作记忆策略的发展 工作记忆是信息的临时存储和处理，它有助于提高在 儿童和成人具有广泛的学习和认知能力。排练，无声地重复着未来的- 记忆信息是一种可以实施的策略，可以用来克服 工作记忆。目前，在理解工作记忆是如何工作的方面存在着根本的差距 策略--尤其是排练--会发展成成年人的水平。缺乏关于这方面的知识 排练的发展轨迹提出了重要的理论和临床问题。彩排已经开始了 被认为是其他工作记忆策略产生的基础技能，但这个假设 除非首先对排练发展本身有一个清楚的了解，否则不能进行测试。在临床上， 旨在提炼工作记忆策略的干预措施有可能改善长期学习 以及表现出工作记忆问题的儿童的认知结果。这项研究的长期目标是 该计划是为了找出个别儿童的工作记忆弱点。一旦这些弱点 可以制定明确的、有针对性的干预措施，以提高更广泛的学术技能，如阅读。 作为第一步，本项目的目标是描述幼儿所处的环境 实施排练策略。主要的假设是，儿童在不同的年龄-- 排练策略的起始性和有效性，这些个体差异与 对任务的要求和孩子的语言能力。这些假说将通过追求两个具体的 研究目的：(1)刻画工作记忆资源被激活时复述的发展轨迹 以及(2)描述词汇知识在视觉能力的早期复述中的作用 提交的名单。在具体目标1下，将监测4至8岁的儿童在各种情况下的排练情况 长度和排练说明各不相同的任务。在具体目标2下，排练使用将被评估为 视觉刺激从有明显的语言标签(即数字)变为不太明显的语言标签(即图片 抽象形状)。儿童的语言能力将被纳入协变量，以控制语言的作用 在排练发展中与年龄分开的经验。这种方法是创新的，因为它超越了 排练的群体水平分析以考察系统操纵下个别儿童的排练 任务要求。这项拟议的研究意义重大，因为它直接解决了 关于幼儿排练发展的文献，典型发育儿童，进展 工作记忆模型，并为干预有干扰的儿童奠定了框架 工作记忆。

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT PROJECT 11: DEVELOPMENT OF VERBAL WORKING MEMORY STRATEGIES IN YOUNG CHILDREN Working memory, the temporary storage and processing of information, contributes to performance on a wide range of academic and cognitive skills in children and adults. Rehearsal, the silent repetition of to-be- remembered information, is one strategy which can be implemented to overcome the storage limitations of working memory. At the present time, there is a fundamental gap in understanding how working memory strategies—particularly rehearsal—develop into adult levels. The lack of knowledge regarding the developmental trajectory of rehearsal poses important theoretical and clinical problems. Rehearsal has been proposed as a foundational skill from which other working memory strategies emerge, but this hypothesis cannot be tested without first having a clear understanding of rehearsal development itself. Clinically, interventions aimed at refining working memory strategies have the potential for improving long-term academic and cognitive outcomes in children who display working memory problems. The long-term goal of this research program is to identify individual children’s working memory weaknesses. Once these weaknesses are identified, targeted interventions can be developed that will improve broader academic skills, such as reading. As a first step, the objective of the present project is to characterize the contexts in which a young child implements rehearsal strategies. The primary hypotheses are that children differ with regard to the age-of- onset and efficiency of rehearsal strategies and that these individual differences are related to both the demands of the task and the child’s language ability. These hypotheses will be tested by pursuing two specific aims: (1) Characterize the developmental trajectory of rehearsal when working memory resources are available or depleted, and (2) Describe the role of lexical knowledge in early rehearsal abilities of visually presented lists. Under Specific Aim 1, children ages 4 to 8 will be monitored for rehearsal use in a variety of tasks that vary in length and rehearsal instructions. Under Specific Aim 2, rehearsal use will be evaluated as visual stimuli change from having obvious verbal labels (i.e. digits) to less obvious verbal labels (i.e. pictures of abstract shapes). Children’s language ability will be included as a covariate to control for the role of language experience separate from age in rehearsal development. This approach is innovative because it moves beyond group-level analyses of rehearsal to examine rehearsal in individual children under systematically manipulated task demands. The proposed research is significant because it directly addresses inconsistencies in the literature regarding the development of rehearsal in young, typically-developing children, advancing current models of working memory as well as lay the framework for interventions for children with disruptions to working memory.