Cognitive Processing and Sentence Comprehension in SLI

SLI 中的认知处理和句子理解

• 批准号: 8442399
• 负责人: Julia L Evans
• 金额: $ 2.63万
• 依托单位: OHIO UNIVERSITY ATHENS
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-09-01 至 2015-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8442399
• 关键词: Accounting; Address; Adult; Age; Attention; Autistic Disorder; Brain Injuries; Child; Child Support; Clinical; Clinical Trials; Cognitive; Comprehension; Development; Etiology; Exhibits; Failure; Goals; Impairment; Individual; Intervention; Investigation; Knowledge; Language; Language Disorders; Language Therapy; Laws; Lead; Linguistics; Literature; Memory; Meta-Analysis; Modeling; Nature; Outcome; Play; Process; Production; Psychometrics; Relative (related person); Research; Resistance; Retrieval; Risk; Role; Secondary to; Short-Term Memory; Speech; Speed; Statistical Models; Structure; System; Techniques; Testing; Theoretical model; Vocabulary; Work; effective intervention; hearing impairment; improved; information processing; insight; language processing; lexical retrieval; memory process; memory retrieval; phonology; phrases; processing speed; public health relevance; response; skills; social; specific language impairment; syntax; systematic review; theories; therapy design

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Research on children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) has primarily focused on their expressive deficits. Relative to our understanding of these children's expressive difficulties, their receptive problems are poorly understood. This has led to underspecified theoretical accounts of SLI, a limited array of effective interventions to treat them, and less than favorable language intervention outcomes. The results of meta-analyses, systematic reviews, and clinical trials indicate that language intervention has a smaller effect on language comprehension than on language production (Cirrin & Gillam, 2008; Law et al., 2004; Bishop, et al., 2006). Recently, Leonard (2009) has argued that an inability to process linguistic information in the input is likely to play a prominent role in the comprehension difficulties of children with SLI. Debate exits as to whether the sentence comprehension problems in children with SLI reflect a deficit in the language system (the domain-specific view) or a general deficit in cognitive processing (the domain-general view). The primary goal of this large-scale project is to systematically determine which account provides the better descriptive and explanatory model to characterize sentence comprehension in children with SLI. The proposed 5-year project will address two related specific aims in five integrated studies. 450 children will participate: 150 children with SLI (ages 9;0-11;11), 150 age/nonverbal IQ matched (CA) children, and 150 younger children matched for short-term memory and vocabulary (YMV). Aim 1 employs a psychometric approach to investigate the relationship between several cognitive processing mechanisms (controlled attention, lexical retrieval, retrieval interference, short-term memory, working memory, and processing speed) and the comprehension of noncanonical sentences (Studies 1-2) or canonical sentences (Studies 3-4). We hypothesize that the modeling results will support the domain-general account. As part of this aim, we will also examine whether similar sets of cognitive mechanisms underlie sentence comprehension in children with SLI and CA children (with different a set likely subserving noncanonical and canonical sentences). Aim 2 more specifically examines working memory retrieval in noncanonical sentence processing to determine whether children with SLI fail or are slower to reactivate a prior constituent (NP1) during noncanonical sentence processing. We hypothesize they will be slower relative to CA children, supporting the domain-general view. Overall, the results may lead to four high impact implications for the field of SLI. First, a fundamentally new theoretical understanding of the relationship between cognitive processing and sentence comprehension may emerge. Second, models of normal adult and SLI sentence comprehension may be merged into a coherent developmental framework. Third, clinical cognitive-linguistic profiles of children with SLI will be expanded. And fourth, critical insights may emerge into which cognitive mechanisms could be targeted in alternative language treatments designed to improve the language comprehension of children with SLI. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The proposed project focuses on better understanding the sentence comprehension problems of children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) by studying how different cognitive difficulties (e.g., poor memory) might relate to their comprehension problems. Results should provide important new information about whether cognitive difficulties in children with SLI relate to their sentence comprehension problems. Results could also have important clinical implications by helping to build a more comprehensive clinical picture of SLI and suggesting cognitive skills that might be good to target in language therapy designed to improve the sentence comprehension of children with SLI.

描述（由申请人提供）：对特定语言障碍（SLI）儿童的研究主要集中在他们的表达缺陷上。相对于我们对这些孩子的表达困难的理解，他们的接受问题却知之甚少。这导致对 SLI 的理论解释不明确、治疗 SLI 的有效干预措施有限，以及语言干预结果不佳。荟萃分析、系统评价和临床试验的结果表明，语言干预对语言理解的影响小于对语言产生的影响（Cirrin & Gillam，2008；Law 等，2004；Bishop 等，2006） 。最近，Leonard (2009) 认为，无法处理输入中的语言信息可能是 SLI 儿童理解困难的主要原因。 关于 SLI 儿童的句子理解问题是否反映了语言系统的缺陷（特定领域观点）或认知处理的一般缺陷（一般领域观点）存在争议。这个大型项目的主要目标是系统地确定哪个帐户提供了更好的描述性和解释性模型来表征 SLI 儿童的句子理解能力。 拟议的五年项目将在五项综合研究中解决两个相关的具体目标。 450 名儿童将参加：150 名患有 SLI 的儿童（9;0-11;11 岁），150 名年龄/非语言智商匹配（CA）的儿童，以及 150 名短期记忆和词汇（YMV）匹配的年龄较小的儿童。目标 1 采用心理测量方法来研究几种认知处理机制（控制注意力、词汇检索、检索干扰、短期记忆、工作记忆和处理速度）与非规范句子的理解之间的关系（研究 1-2）或规范句子（研究 3-4）。我们假设建模结果将支持领域通用帐户。作为这一目标的一部分，我们还将研究 SLI 和 CA 儿童的句子理解是否存在相似的认知机制（不同的认知机制可能支持非规范和规范句子）。目标 2 更具体地检查非规范句子处理中的工作记忆检索，以确定患有 SLI 的儿童在非规范句子处理过程中是否无法或较慢地重新激活先前的成分 (NP1)。我们假设它们相对于 CA 子级来说会更慢，支持领域通用观点。 总体而言，研究结果可能会对 SLI 领域产生四个重大影响。首先，对于认知处理和句子理解之间的关系可能会出现一种全新的理论理解。其次，正常成人和 SLI 句子理解的模型可以合并到一个连贯的发展框架中。第三，SLI 儿童的临床认知语言特征将得到扩展。第四，可能会出现重要的见解，即旨在提高 SLI 儿童语言理解能力的替代语言治疗中可以针对哪些认知机制。 公共健康相关性：拟议项目的重点是通过研究不同的认知困难（例如记忆力差）与他们的理解问题之间的关系，更好地理解患有特定语言障碍（SLI）的儿童的句子理解问题。结果应该提供重要的新信息，说明 SLI 儿童的认知困难是否与其句子理解问题有关。研究结果还可能具有重要的临床意义，有助于建立更全面的 SLI 临床图像，并提出可能有利于语言治疗的认知技能，旨在提高 SLI 儿童的句子理解能力。