Identifying the role of sensorimotor feedback as a mechanism for language learning in the first three years of life

确定感觉运动反馈作为生命前三年语言学习机制的作用

• 批准号: EP/X042405/1
• 负责人: Catherine Laing
• 金额: $ 161.95万
• 依托单位: University of York
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FX042405%2F1
• 关键词: Identifying; role; sensorimotor; feedback; mechanism

Language abilities by age 3 predict a child's later academic achievements. This offers an important opportunity to narrow theachievement gap between children from richer and poorer homes: by finding ways to expand a child's vocabulary, those from lower-incomehomes may have better life chances. This has led to an emphasis on vocabulary development research, which shows a clearlink between a child's early language environment and their later vocabulary. However, interventions reveal that this problem is noteasy to resolve; by the second year, positive changes to the linguistic environment do not have any clear effects on a child'svocabulary. By age 1, the foundation may already have been set for a child's future language skills; to address the word gap problem afocus-shift is required towards vocal development during the first year of life. The proposed research offers a novel perspective thatemphasises this period as a crucial window for learning even before an infant has begun to speak. This is due to the role ofsensorimotor feedback: a network of simultaneous sensory events that occur when infants vocalize, including proprioception,muscular function, and auditory input. These sensorimotor events, or mappings, may offer a rich learning opportunity that has as-yetuntapped potential in understanding how infants learn to talk. This research presents a new framework for understanding languagedevelopment through a focus on sensorimotor feedback, which may be a key missing link between the language a child hears in thehome and their vocabulary by school-age. A combination of naturalistic and experimental data will present a novel view ofsensorimotor feedback in relation to 1) the early environment and 2) later vocabulary, drawing on advanced methods in phoneticsand developmental psychology to propose a new framework for understanding how infants learn and, subsequently, addressing theachievement gap.

3 岁时的语言能力可以预测孩子以后的学业成就。这为缩小富裕家庭和贫困家庭的孩子之间的成就差距提供了一个重要的机会：通过寻找扩大孩子词汇量的方法，来自低收入家庭的孩子可能会拥有更好的生活机会。这导致了对词汇发展研究的重视，该研究表明儿童早期的语言环境与后来的词汇之间存在明显的联系。然而，干预表明这个问题并不容易解决；到第二年，语言环境的积极变化不会对孩子的词汇量产生任何明显的影响。到 1 岁时，孩子未来的语言技能可能已经奠定了基础；为了解决单词差距问题，需要在生命的第一年将焦点转移到声音发展上。这项研究提供了一个新颖的视角，强调这一时期是婴儿开始说话之前学习的关键窗口。这是由于感觉运动反馈的作用：婴儿发声时发生的同时感觉事件网络，包括本体感觉、肌肉功能和听觉输入。这些感觉运动事件或映射可能提供丰富的学习机会，在理解婴儿如何学习说话方面尚未开发潜力。这项研究提出了一个通过关注感觉运动反馈来理解语言发展的新框架，这可能是孩子在家里听到的语言和学龄词汇之间缺失的一个关键环节。自然主义和实验数据的结合将提出一种关于 1) 早期环境和 2) 后期词汇的感觉运动反馈的新颖观点，利用语音学和发展心理学的先进方法，提出一个新的框架来理解婴儿如何学习，以及随后，解决成就差距。