The proposed research investigates the growth of language and reading skills during the elementary schoolyears in a group of 40 children with unilateral pre- or perinatal lesions (PL) whose preschool languagedevelopment has been studied longitudinally since the preschool years. By continuing to follow the samegroup of children during elementary school, we have a unique opportunity to investigate whether functionalplasticity for early language skills extends to more complex oral and written language skills. In Study I, weexamine language and reading development from kindergarten through 4th grade in relation to children'slesion characteristics. Together with the preschool data, this will provide language growth trajectories from14 months to 10 years. In Study 2, we examine how brain-injured children use gesture to support morecomplex language skills, and whether they use gesture in a compensatory manner. In Study 3, we usehierarchical linear modeling to examine the importance of children's preschool growth trajectories, preschoolinput, and lesion characteristics in predicting their later language and reading development. The datacollected in Projects I and II will serve as a normative base for these studies of brain-injured children.This research will add to our knowledge about development in the face of early brain injury in severalways. First, it will provide needed information about the development of later language skills and reading inthis population, skills that are important to school success. Second, it will provide information about therelation of early language trajectories to these later developing skills. Third, it will provide information aboutthe role played by gesture in language learning. Finally, it will elucidate the joint effects of the biologicalcharacteristics of children's lesions and the language input they receive from primary caregivers on theirlanguage and reading development. The research has theoretical as well as practical implications. Withrespect to theory, our studies will help delineate the limits and extent of functional plasticity, allowing us todetermine whether the plasticity observed for early language processes in the face of PL extends to morecomplex language and reading. With respect to application, characterizing the nature of caregiver-childlanguage interactions that are effective in promoting the language skills of brain-injured children has obviousimplications for intervention efforts.
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