Language Input as a Mechanism Underlying Socioeconomic Disparities in Neurocognitive Development

语言输入作为神经认知发展社会经济差异的机制

• 批准号: 10706839
• 负责人: Rachel Rene Romeo
• 金额: $ 11.55万
• 依托单位: UNIV OF MARYLAND, COLLEGE PARK
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-03-01 至 2025-01-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10706839
• 关键词: 3-Dimensional; Achievement; Address; Age; Attitude; Auditory; Award; Belief; Brain; Child; Childhood; Code; Cognitive; Communities; Development; Dimensions; Disparity; Environment; Family; Funding; Grant; Health; Income; Intervention; Language; Language Development; Latinx; Linguistics; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Measures; Methods; Modeling; Neurocognitive; Nursery Schools; Parent-Child Relations; Parents; Postdoctoral Fellow; Readiness; Research; Sampling; Schools; Semantics; Socioeconomic Status; System; Testing; Training; Variant; Work; Writing; career; cognitive development; cognitive task; contextual factors; executive function; experience; functional near infrared spectroscopy; innovation; multimodality; neural network; neurodevelopment; parent grant; scaffold; skills; social; social cognition; socioeconomic disparity; syntax

Summary of Funded Parent Award and Proposed Supplement Childhood socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with disparities in cognitive, linguistic, and academic development.1,2 Understanding the precise environmental and neurodevelopmental mechanisms that underlie these disparities is critical for developing maximally impactful interventions to reduce and ultimately ameliorate achievement gaps. The parent award proposes and tests an innovative developmental model in which specific features of children’s early language input engage the cascading development of frontotemporal neural networks that ultimately scaffold multiple aspects of social-cognitive development. Beyond just language abilities, these also include executive functioning (EF) and social cognition (SC)— critical school readiness skills that are known to contribute to SES achievement gaps in school.3,4 The parent award investigates three dimensions of language input quality: linguistic (e.g., semantics and syntax), social-interactive (e.g., contingent turn-taking), and conceptual (e.g., decontextualized language) features.5 Investigating these three dimensions in parallel is necessary to understand which aspects of input scaffold various domains of neurocognitive development and in what way. Notably, this research leverages multi-modal assessments of children’s environments (real-world auditory language exposure and lab-based video-coding of parent-child interaction) and brain development (MRI measures of structural brain development and fNIRS measures of brain function during domain-specific cognitive tasks) longitudinally across the preschool years (ages 3;0-4;11 years) to address three specific aims: ● Aim 1: Characterize how three dimensions of early language experience (linguistic, social/interactive, and conceptual) influence structural and functional brain development underlying receptive and expressive language development. ● Aim 2: Evaluate whether specific features of language input serve as a mechanism of SES disparities in nonlinguistic cognitive domains (EF and SC) that are critical for school readiness, either directly or indirectly, through developing language skills. ● Aim 3: Examine whether input-driven, longitudinal development of frontotemporal language-related brain networks also scaffold the development of neural systems underlying the emergence of executive functioning and social cognition. Impact: Results from the parent grant have the potential to identify maximally impactful, malleable intervention targets to help ameliorate income-related achievement gaps in school readiness skills.

受资助家长奖及建议补助金摘要 童年社会经济地位（SES）与认知、语言和学业方面的差异有关 发育.1,2 了解其背后的精确环境和神经发育机制 这些差异对于制定最有效的干预措施以减少并最终改善 家长奖励建议并测试创新的发展模式，其中具体 儿童早期语言输入的特征涉及额颞叶神经的级联发展 最终支撑社会认知发展多个方面的网络。 能力，其中还包括执行功能 (EF) 和社会认知 (SC)——关键的入学准备 已知会导致学校 SES 成绩差距的技能。3,4 家长奖调查了三项 语言输入质量的维度：语言（例如语义和语法）、社交交互（例如偶然性） 轮流）和概念（例如，脱离语境的语言）特征。5 研究这三个维度 同时有必要了解神经认知各个领域输入支架的哪些方面 值得注意的是，这项研究利用了对儿童的多模式评估。 环境（真实世界的听觉语言暴露和基于实验室的亲子互动视频编码） 和大脑发育（大脑结构发育的 MRI 测量和大脑功能的 fNIRS 测量） 在特定领域的认知任务中）纵向跨越学龄前阶段（3岁；0-4岁；11岁） 解决三个具体目标： ● 目标 1：描述早期语言体验的三个维度（语言、社交/互动和 概念）影响接受性和表达性的大脑结构和功能发育 语言发展。 ● 目标 2：评估语言输入的具体特征是否是社会经济地位差异的机制。 非语言认知领域（EF 和 SC）对于入学准备直接或间接至关重要， 通过发展语言技能。 ● 目标 3：检查额颞叶语言相关大脑是否受输入驱动、纵向发育 网络还支持神经系统的发展，是执行功能出现的基础 和社会认知。 影响：家长资助的结果有可能确定最具影响力、可塑性的干预措施 帮助缩小入学准备技能方面与收入相关的成就差距的目标。