WORD LEARNING & MEMORY FUNCTIONS IN CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

单词学习

• 批准号: 6071309
• 负责人: Inge-Marie Eigsti
• 金额: $ 2.29万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-12-01 至 2000-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6071309
• 关键词: Downs syndrome; autism; behavioral /social science research tag; child psychology; clinical research; comprehension; cues; functional ability; human subject; language development; language disorders; learning disorders; memory disorders; middle childhood (6-11); neuropsychology; phonology; preschool child (1-5); semantics; short term memory; syntax; verbal learning

This dissertation examines how grammatical knowledge and referential salience guide early world learning in autism, a developmental disability characterized by significant language deficits. The process of word learning requires a child to match co-occurrences of words of parts of words (morphemes) and their meanings. This matching demands the integration of multiple, probabilistic cues from the linguistic, social, and real-world contexts, and thus may depend on working memory. Paradoxically, the limited short-term verbal memory characteristic of typically-developing children may improve this analysis of co- occurrences. Their limited memory for verbal strings may focus attention on smaller elements, which in language are the most important meaning- bearing units for grammatical information. In contrast, a pattern of efficient verbal short-term memory and limited working memory could impede rule-learning, leading to language delays. This pattern is thought to characterize children with autism, and thus may help explain their language deficits. The present study examines early language in autism using a word-learning task that varies both grammatical and referential cues to a novel word. This task, which examine sub-categorization into count and mass non classes, is highly relevant to word learning in normal development. The influence of social and non-social referential cues is also compared. Working and short-term phonological memory are tested in order to assess whether the hypothesized pattern of memory deficits is correlated with performance on the lexical task. Participants will be 20 children with autism, 20 verbal and chronological age-matched children with Down syndrome, and 20 verbal mental age-matched normal controls. Results will inform out understanding of language development in autism and thus have important implications for intervention. Results will also heighten our understanding of the roles that working and short-term phonological memory play in language development.

本论文研究了语法知识和参照显着性如何指导自闭症患者的早期世界学习，自闭症是一种以严重语言缺陷为特征的发育障碍。单词学习的过程需要孩子将单词的共现或部分单词（语素）及其含义进行匹配。这种匹配需要整合来自语言、社会和现实世界背景的多种概率线索，因此可能取决于工作记忆。矛盾的是，正常发育儿童有限的短期言语记忆特征可能会改善对共现现象的分析。他们对动词字符串的有限记忆可能会将注意力集中在较小的元素上，而这些元素在语言中是语法信息最重要的意义承载单元。相比之下，高效的言语短期记忆和有限的工作记忆模式可能会阻碍规则学习，导致语言延迟。这种模式被认为是自闭症儿童的特征，因此可能有助于解释他们的语言缺陷。本研究使用单词学习任务来检查自闭症的早期语言，该任务改变了新单词的语法和指代线索。这项任务检查计数和非类的子分类，与正常发展中的单词学习高度相关。还比较了社会和非社会参考线索的影响。测试工作记忆和短期语音记忆，以评估假设的记忆缺陷模式是否与词汇任务的表现相关。参与者将包括 20 名自闭症儿童、20 名语言和时间年龄匹配的唐氏综合症儿童以及 20 名语言心理年龄匹配的正常对照组。结果将有助于了解自闭症的语言发展，从而对干预具有重要意义。研究结果还将加深我们对工作记忆和短期语音记忆在语言发展中所扮演的角色的理解。