Exemplar Variability in Cross-Situational Word Learning Among Young Autistic Children

自闭症儿童跨情境词汇学习的范例变异性

• 批准号: 10605642
• 负责人: Kathryn Elaine Prescott
• 金额: $ 4.68万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10605642
• 关键词: 4 year old; Adolescent; Adult; Age; Characteristics; Child; Child Language; Clinical; Collaborations; Color; Development; Early Intervention; Environment; Ethics; Experimental Designs; Foundations; Future; Goals; High Prevalence; Image; Individual; Intervention; Investigation; Knowledge; Label; Language; Language Delays; Language Development; Learning; Life; Measures; Mentorship; Methodology; Methods; National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders; Nursery Schools; Pathway interactions; Performance; Population; Preschool Child; Process; Property; Research; Research Personnel; School-Age Population; Schools; Severities; Shapes; Stimulus; Strategic Planning; Structure; Symptoms; Task Performances; Texture; Time; Training; Vocabulary; Work; abstracting; autism spectrum disorder; autistic; autistic children; base; clinical practice; cohort; educational atmosphere; experience; insight; language impairment; natural language; negative affect; novel; peer; responsible research conduct; success; theories; visual tracking; word learning

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Word-learning difficulties are common among young autistic children. If unaddressed, these early challenges can negatively affect children’s communicative and academic success. To determine appropriate strategies for early intervention, it is essential to first understand the mechanisms underlying word learning in this highly heterogenous population. Based on previous work, one mechanism available to older autistic children is cross-situational learning (CSL). However, the higher prevalence of word-learning difficulties in ASD suggests the possibility of remaining unknown factors limiting children’s ability to make efficient use of CSL in real-world language environments. One possibility is that autistic children demonstrate delays in early development of CSL with cascading consequences for word learning. Previous findings indicate that older autistic children can use CSL to learn words, but this mechanism has not yet been examined in preschool-age autistic children. Employing a Looking-While-Listening eye-tracking paradigm, Specific Aim 1 (Study 1) of the proposed project will investigate CSL in a younger group of children (2- to 4-years old). A second possibility is that prior CSL studies have not reflected the challenges of children’s natural language environments. Previous studies required children to associate only one exemplar image with each label, whereas in real-world learning situations children encounter many different objects that are all given the same label. To support word learning in these contexts, neurotypical (NT) children tend to categorize objects based on shape (known as the shape bias). Preschool- and school-age autistic children do not share this tendency with NT peers. Without a shape bias, we might expect autistic children to experience word learning difficulties when multiple exemplars are presented matching the same label and shape but varying across other perceptual features (i.e., color). Specific Aim 2 (Study 2) will examine the impact of exemplar variability on novel words in the context of CSL and ostensive training tasks in young autistic children and language-matched NT peers. Finally, Specific Aim 3 (Study 3) will examine child characteristics associated with CSL task performance in ASD. By examining autistic preschool children’s ability to learn words via CSL at a younger age and across variable exemplars, the proposed project will elucidate potential points of vulnerability in word learning for this population. Study findings will advance the NIDCD strategic plan by increasing our understanding of language mechanisms in ASD and how they function differently across individual children and environmental contexts, with clinical implications including therapy stimuli selection and establishing CSL principles as a foundation for future interventions. Training Plan. The applicant’s training will focus on acquiring new methodological and conceptual knowledge in language-learning processes, eye-tracking methods, translational experimental design, mentorship of junior researchers, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and ethical and responsible conduct of research.

项目摘要/摘要 在年轻的孩子中，单词学习困难很常见。如果未解决，这些 挑战会对儿童的交流和学术成就产生负面影响。确定适当的 早期干预的策略，首先了解单词学习的机制至关重要 这个高度异质的人群。基于以前的工作，老年加速儿童可用的一种机制 是跨宣传学习（CSL）。但是，ASD中较高的单词学习困难的流行率建议 保持未知因素的可能性限制了儿童在现实世界中有效利用CSL的能力 语言环境。一种可能性是令人印象深刻的孩子在早期发展中表现出延误 对文字学习的级联后果。以前的发现表明，年长的加速儿童可以使用 CSL学习单词，但是在学龄前加速的儿童中尚未对这种机制进行检查。雇用 拟议项目的特定目的1（研究1）将是一个外观的视线追踪范式，将 在一群年轻的儿童（2至4岁）中调查CSL。第二种可能性是先前的CSL研究 没有反映儿童自然语言环境的挑战。以前的研究需要孩子 仅将一个示例图像与每个标签相关联，而在现实世界中的学习情况下 遇到许多不同的对象，这些对象都给出了相同的标签。在这些情况下支持单词学习， 神经型（NT）儿童倾向于根据形状（称为形状偏差）对物体进行分类。学龄前和 学校年龄令人印象深刻的孩子不会与NT同龄人分享这种趋势。没有形状偏见，我们可能会期望 自闭症儿童在介绍多个示例时会体验单词学习困难 相同的标签和形状，但在其他感知特征（即颜色）中有所不同。特定的目标2（研究2）将 在CSL和表面训练任务的背景下，检查示例变异性对新单词的影响 年轻的孩子和语言匹配的NT同龄人。最后，特定的目标3（研究3）将检查儿童 与ASD中的CSL任务性能相关的特征。通过检查令人印象深刻的学龄前儿童的能力 要通过CSL在年轻时代和各种示例中学习单词，该项目将阐明 这个人群的单词学习脆弱性的潜在点。研究结果将推进NIDCD 通过增加对ASD中语言机制及其功能不同的语言机制的理解来通过提高战略计划 在各个儿童和环境环境中，具有临床意义，包括疗法刺激 选择并建立CSL原则，作为未来干预措施的基础。培训计划。申请人的 培训将着重于在语言学习过程中获取新的方法论和概念知识， 眼球追踪方法，翻译实验设计，初级研究人员的精神船，跨学科 协作，以及研究的道德和负责任的行为。