Attention in Bilingual Children with Language Impairment

语言障碍双语儿童的注意力

• 批准号: 9063048
• 负责人: Kerry Danahy Ebert
• 金额: $ 15.5万
• 依托单位: RUSH UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-05-05 至 2018-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9063048
• 关键词: 9 year old; Affect; Age; Area; Attention; Child; Cognition; Cognitive; Cognitive deficits; Communication impairment; Development; Developmental Communication Disorders; Disease; Goals; Grant; Health; Impaired cognition; Impairment; Intervention; Language; Language Development; Linguistics; Literature; Modality; Monitor; National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders; Nature; Neuronal Plasticity; Pattern; Peer Group; Performance; Population; Population Heterogeneity; School-Age Population; Stimulus; Strategic Planning; Stream; United States; Visual; Work; acronyms; attentional control; bilingualism; clinically significant; cognitive development; cognitive process; cognitive skill; cognitive task; developmental disease; experience; improved; language impairment; peer; screening; selective attention; skills; social; specific language impairment

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project will examine two influences on the nonlinguistic attention skills of school-aged bilingual children with Primary (or Specific) Language Impairment (PLI). The first influence is PLI, which is defined by clinically significant delays in language skills yet associated with subclinical deficits in several nonlinguistic cognitie skills. The second influence is bilingualism, which appears to enhance specific cognitive skills in developing children. Whether the nonlinguistic cognitive deficits associated with PLI extend fully to bilingual children, or whether they are mitigated by the cognitive benefits of bilingualism, is not yet established. Attention is a key skill in both populations, as sustained selective attention appears impaired in children with PLI and attentional control appears enhanced in bilingual children. This project will determine whether bilingual children with PLI demonstrate deficits in sustained selective attention, as their monolingual peers with PLI do, and whether they demonstrate advantages in attentional control, as their typically developing bilingual peers do. Performance on visual nonlinguistic assessments of sustained selective attention and attentional control will be compared across four groups of 6- to 9- year old children (N = 30 per group): Spanish-English bilingual children with and without PLI and English monolingual children with and without PLI. In the area of sustained selective attention, it is hypothesized tha monolingual and bilingual children with PLI will perform below both groups of unaffected peers, indicating that the subtle cognitive impairments associated with PLI extend to bilingual children. In the area of attentional control, it is hypothesized that both groups of bilinguals will outperfom their monolingual peers and that the groups with PLI will perform more poorly than the unaffected groups. This pattern would suggest that attentional control may be impaired in children with PLI, but that the impairment can be mitigated by bilingual experience. Results of these comparisons will disentangle potentially competing influences on cognitive development. Clinically, the project will indicate the suitability of nonlinguistic assessments of attention in he identification of PLI within linguistically diverse populations, and also whether dual-language treatment for bilingual children with PLI can provide subtle cognitive benefits. Overall, the project will enhance understanding of the interactions between cognition, experience, and language in children with developmental communication disorders. It contributes towards the long- term goal of characterizing cognitive and social influences on language skills in bilingual children with PLI.

 描述（由申请人提供）：该项目将研究对患有原发性（或特定）语言障碍（PLI）的学龄双语儿童的非语言注意力技能的两种影响。第一个影响是 PLI，其定义为临床上显着的语言障碍。语言技能与一些非语言认知技能的亚临床缺陷相关 第二个影响是双语，它似乎可以增强特定的认知技能。 与 PLI 相关的非语言认知缺陷是否会完全延伸到双语儿童，或者是否可以通过双语的认知益处得到缓解，目前尚未确定注意力对于这两个人群来说都是一项关键技能。 患有 PLI 的儿童的注意力似乎受到损害，而双语儿童的注意力控制似乎有所增强。该项目将确定患有 PLI 的双语儿童是否像单语 PLI 的同龄人一样表现出持续选择性注意力的缺陷，以及他们是否像他们的单语儿童一样表现出注意力控制的优势。通常，将比较四组 6 至 9 岁儿童（每组 30 人）在持续选择性注意力和注意力控制方面的视觉非语言评估表现：有和没有 PLI 的西班牙语-英语双语儿童和有和没有 PLI 的英语单语儿童在持续选择性注意领域，发现患有 PLI 的单语和双语儿童的表现低于两组未受影响的同龄人。与 PLI 相关的微妙认知障碍延伸到了双语儿童。在注意力控制方面，人们再次认识到，两组双语儿童的表现都会优于单语儿童，而患有 PLI 的儿童则更胜一筹。这种模式表明，患有 PLI 的儿童的注意力控制可能会受到损害，但这种损害可以通过双语经验来缓解，从而消除对认知发展的潜在竞争性影响。该项目将表明非语言注意力评估在不同语言人群中识别 PLI 的适用性，以及对双语 PLI 儿童的双语治疗是否可以提供微妙的认知益处总体而言，该项目将增强对 PLI 的理解。患有发育性沟通障碍的儿童的认知、经验和语言之间的相互作用有助于实现描述双语儿童语言技能的认知和社会影响的长期目标。