The broad goal of this project is to advance our theoretical understanding of how early semantic development and language processing skills contribute to early infant risk for later language delays and impairments. We will examine infants with broad spectrum of language abilities, including those who are late-talking. Late talking infants are a group of children between 18-24 months of age who fall below the 20th percentile in early language measures. While many late talking children do catch up with their peers and show typical language growth, a subset will remain delayed and receive a diagnosis of specific language impairment (SLI). SLI is a language disorder that affects nearly 8% of school-aged children and results in difficulties in a range of language skills, and can lead to negative academic and social consequences. Children with SLI are not often identified until they are school-aged, although parents often report concerns about language growth that start from infancy. There is an urgent need not only to develop of measures that can identify which children are at greatest risk for language impairments in infancy and toddlerhood, but also to understand the mechanisms that underlie these language delays. Such advancements, in tandem, have the potential to yield crucial insights into how early intervention for early language delays may yield improved outcomes for these children. By investigating two promising markers of later language delay (1) early fluency and accuracy in lexical recognition, and (2) early semantic structure of vocabulary development, this project is can further refine measures that have shown early promise in identifying markers of language delay, and identify whether or not these skills are casually related. We assess whether a relationship exists between these factors, and if in combination they may improve identification of children who will remain delayed in language skills at age 3. The specific objectives of this proposal are to (1) evaluate the relationship between semantic domain knowledge and real-time recognition of words from 18-30 months, (2) explore whether and how word learning, semantic development, and processing skills are related and (3) assess whether language outcomes at 36 months relate to earlier measures acquired between 18-30 months. This project will highlight the importance of the ability to efficiently recognize, interpret and learn relationships between word meanings as a marker of later language delay, and will provide insights into the value of teaching semantic relationships between words as a potential approach for early intervention.

Public Health Relevance

This project will explore how two potential markers of language delay in infancy, semantic development and real-time lexical recognition skills, relate to language outcomes at age 3. The nature of relationships between these two skills will have relevance for clinicians who are interested in early diagnosis and treatment of children at risk fo later language impairments, and will contribute to our understanding of how individual language outcomes emerge from the interaction of early skills in lexical processing and semantic knowledge.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Type
Small Research Grants (R03)
Project #
5R03DC013638-03
Application #
9178658
Study Section
Communication Disorders Review Committee (CDRC)
Program Officer
Cooper, Judith
Project Start
2014-12-01
Project End
2018-11-30
Budget Start
2016-12-01
Budget End
2018-11-30
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2017
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Florida State University
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
790877419
City
Tallahassee
State
FL
Country
United States
Zip Code
32306
Lieberman, Amy M; Borovsky, Arielle; Mayberry, Rachel I (2018) Prediction in a visual language: real-time sentence processing in American Sign Language across development. Lang Cogn Neurosci 33:387-401
Borovsky, Arielle (2017) The amount and structure of prior event experience affects anticipatory sentence interpretation. Lang Cogn Neurosci 32:190-204
Troyer, Melissa; Borovsky, Arielle (2017) Maternal Socioeconomic Status Influences the Range of Expectations During Language Comprehension in Adulthood. Cogn Sci 41 Suppl 6:1405-1433
Lieberman, Amy M; Borovsky, Arielle; Hatrak, Marla et al. (2016) Where to look for American Sign Language (ASL) sublexical structure in the visual world: Reply to Salverda (2016). J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 42:2002-2006
Borovsky, Arielle; Ellis, Erica M; Evans, Julia L et al. (2016) Semantic Structure in Vocabulary Knowledge Interacts With Lexical and Sentence Processing in Infancy. Child Dev 87:1893-1908
Borovsky, Arielle; Ellis, Erica M; Evans, Julia L et al. (2016) Lexical leverage: category knowledge boosts real-time novel word recognition in 2-year-olds. Dev Sci 19:918-932
Ellis, Erica M; Borovsky, Arielle; Elman, Jeffrey L et al. (2015) Novel word learning: An eye-tracking study. Are 18-month-old late talkers really different from their typical peers? J Commun Disord 58:143-57
Lieberman, Amy M; Borovsky, Arielle; Hatrak, Marla et al. (2015) Real-time processing of ASL signs: Delayed first language acquisition affects organization of the mental lexicon. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 41:1130-9