Statistical learning ability at 17 months relates to early reading skills via oral language.

Statistical learning ability has been found to relate to children's reading skills. Yet, statistical learning is also known to be vital for developing oral language skills, and oral language and reading skills relate strongly. These connections raise the question of whether statistical learning ability affects reading via oral language or directly. Statistical learning is multifaceted, and so different aspects of statistical learning might influence oral language and reading skills distinctly. In a longitudinal study, we determined how two aspects of statistical learning from an artificial language tested on 70 17-month-old infants-segmenting sequences from speech and generalizing the sequence structure-related to oral language skills measured at 54 months and reading skills measured at approximately 75 months. Statistical learning segmentation did not relate significantly to oral language or reading, whereas statistical learning generalization related to oral language, but only indirectly related to reading. Our results showed that children's early statistical learning ability was associated with learning to read via the children's oral language skills.

A Comprehensive Examination of Prediction-Based Error as a Mechanism for Syntactic Development: Evidence From Syntactic Priming.

Prediction-based accounts of language acquisition have the potential to explain several different effects in child language acquisition and adult language processing. However, evidence regarding the developmental predictions of such accounts is mixed. Here, we consider several predictions of these accounts in two large-scale developmental studies of syntactic priming of the English dative alternation. Study 1 was a cross-sectional study (N = 140) of children aged 3-9 years, in which we found strong evidence of abstract priming and the lexical boost, but little evidence that either effect was moderated by age. We found weak evidence for a prime surprisal effect; however, exploratory analyses revealed a protracted developmental trajectory for verb-structure biases, providing an explanation as for why prime surprisal effects are more elusive in developmental populations. In a longitudinal study (N = 102) of children in tightly controlled age bands at 42, 48, and 54 months, we found priming effects emerged on trials with verb overlap early but did not observe clear evidence of priming on trials without verb overlap until 54 months. There was no evidence of a prime surprisal effect at any time point and none of the effects were moderated by age. The results relating to the emergence of the abstract priming and lexical boost effects are consistent with prediction-based models, while the absence of age-related effects appears to reflect the structure-specific challenges the dative presents to English-acquiring children. Overall, our complex pattern of findings demonstrates the value of developmental data sets in testing psycholinguistic theory.

Does the speaker's eye gaze facilitate infants' word segmentation from continuous speech? An ERP study.

The environment in which infants learn language is multimodal and rich with social cues. Yet, the effects of such cues, such as eye contact, on early speech perception have not been closely examined. This study assessed the role of ostensive speech, signalled through the speaker's eye gaze direction, on infants' word segmentation abilities. A familiarisation-then-test paradigm was used while electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. Ten-month-old Dutch-learning infants were familiarised with audio-visual stories in which a speaker recited four sentences with one repeated target word. The speaker addressed them either with direct or with averted gaze while speaking. In the test phase following each story, infants heard familiar and novel words presented via audio-only. Infants' familiarity with the words was assessed using event-related potentials (ERPs). As predicted, infants showed a negative-going ERP familiarity effect to the isolated familiarised words relative to the novel words over the left-frontal region of interest during the test phase. While the word familiarity effect did not differ as a function of the speaker's gaze over the left-frontal region of interest, there was also a (not predicted) positive-going early ERP familiarity effect over right fronto-central and central electrodes in the direct gaze condition only. This study provides electrophysiological evidence that infants can segment words from audio-visual speech, regardless of the ostensiveness of the speaker's communication. However, the speaker's gaze direction seems to influence the processing of familiar words. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: We examined 10-month-old infants' ERP word familiarity response using audio-visual stories, in which a speaker addressed infants with direct or averted gaze while speaking. Ten-month-old infants can segment and recognise familiar words from audio-visual speech, indicated by their negative-going ERP response to familiar, relative to novel, words. This negative-going ERP word familiarity effect was present for isolated words over left-frontal electrodes regardless of whether the speaker offered eye contact while speaking. An additional positivity in response to familiar words was observed for direct gaze only, over right fronto-central and central electrodes.

Everyday language input and production in 1,001 children from six continents.

Language is a universal human ability, acquired readily by young children, who otherwise struggle with many basics of survival. And yet, language ability is variable across individuals. Naturalistic and experimental observations suggest that children's linguistic skills vary with factors like socioeconomic status and children's gender. But which factors really influence children's day-to-day language use? Here, we leverage speech technology in a big-data approach to report on a unique cross-cultural and diverse data set: >2,500 d-long, child-centered audio-recordings of 1,001 2- to 48-mo-olds from 12 countries spanning six continents across urban, farmer-forager, and subsistence-farming contexts. As expected, age and language-relevant clinical risks and diagnoses predicted how much speech (and speech-like vocalization) children produced. Critically, so too did adult talk in children's environments: Children who heard more talk from adults produced more speech. In contrast to previous conclusions based on more limited sampling methods and a different set of language proxies, socioeconomic status (operationalized as maternal education) was not significantly associated with children's productions over the first 4 y of life, and neither were gender or multilingualism. These findings from large-scale naturalistic data advance our understanding of which factors are robust predictors of variability in the speech behaviors of young learners in a wide range of everyday contexts.

Preferred physical characteristics of lidocaine thin film for women with vestibulodynia.

Introduction: Vestibulodynia (VBD) is the most common cause of sexual pain in the United States, affecting up to 15% of reproductive-aged women during their lifetime with limited treatment options. The purpose of this study was to describe ideal physical characteristics of a vulvar film designed for insertional sexual pain in sexually active women with VBD. Methods: Twenty women were recruited to participant in one of six, semi-structured 60-minute focus group discussions regarding treatment options for VBD. Heterosexual women, aged 18-51 years old with a diagnosis of vulvodynia, vestibulodynia or insertional dyspareunia fit the inclusion criteria. Those who reported no episodes of vaginal intercourse in the prior 18 months were excluded. A new vulvar film technology loaded with 50 mg of 5% lidocaine was introduced to the group. Participants took part in focus groups on a rolling basis depending on availability. Focus group discussions were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Two study investigators coded the transcripts using inductive coding and merged their respective projects to resolve disagreements. We analyzed data related to each code to develop code clusters and higher-level primary topics regarding device preferences. Data related to each of these primary topics was analyzed to assess the range of participant attitudes and preferences and to identify patterns within each primary topic. Results: One hundred and sixteen women were recruited, and twenty women were enrolled. The mean age for the participants was 33.3 years. Most women were educated with at least some college (93%), White (78.6%), married (75%), and had income greater than $100,000 (50%). Analysis of the focus group discussions identified five common topics addressed by participants: desired loaded medication, film size, film shape, film flexibility, and ease and accuracy of use. Concerns across topics included comfort, sexual spontaneity, and efficacy. Interest in loading the device with other acceptable medications or combination with lidocaine was independently noted in 2/6 (33%) of the focus groups. Discussion: Mucoadhesive vulvar thin films may be an acceptable drug delivery system for insertional sexual pain for women with VBD.

Ten-month-old infants' neural tracking of naturalistic speech is not facilitated by the speaker's eye gaze.

Eye gaze is a powerful ostensive cue in infant-caregiver interactions, with demonstrable effects on language acquisition. While the link between gaze following and later vocabulary is well-established, the effects of eye gaze on other aspects of language, such as speech processing, are less clear. In this EEG study, we examined the effects of the speaker's eye gaze on ten-month-old infants' neural tracking of naturalistic audiovisual speech, a marker for successful speech processing. Infants watched videos of a speaker telling stories, addressing the infant with direct or averted eye gaze. We assessed infants' speech-brain coherence at stress (1-1.75 Hz) and syllable (2.5-3.5 Hz) rates, tested for differences in attention by comparing looking times and EEG theta power in the two conditions, and investigated whether neural tracking predicts later vocabulary. Our results showed that infants' brains tracked the speech rhythm both at the stress and syllable rates, and that infants' neural tracking at the syllable rate predicted later vocabulary. However, speech-brain coherence did not significantly differ between direct and averted gaze conditions and infants did not show greater attention to direct gaze. Overall, our results suggest significant neural tracking at ten months, related to vocabulary development, but not modulated by speaker's gaze.

Learning to generalise but not segment an artificial language at 17 months predicts children's language skills 3 years later.

We investigated whether learning an artificial language at 17 months was predictive of children's natural language vocabulary and grammar skills at 54 months. Children at 17 months listened to an artificial language containing non-adjacent dependencies, and were then tested on their learning to segment and to generalise the structure of the language. At 54 months, children were then tested on a range of standardised natural language tasks that assessed receptive and expressive vocabulary and grammar. A structural equation model demonstrated that learning the artificial language generalisation at 17 months predicted language abilities - a composite of vocabulary and grammar skills - at 54 months, whereas artificial language segmentation at 17 months did not predict language abilities at this age. Artificial language learning tasks - especially those that probe grammar learning - provide a valuable tool for uncovering the mechanisms driving children's early language development.

Language outcomes from the UK-CDI Project: can risk factors, vocabulary skills and gesture scores in infancy predict later language disorders or concern for language development?

At the group level, children exposed to certain health and demographic risk factors, and who have delayed language in early childhood are, more likely to have language problems later in childhood. However, it is unclear whether we can use these risk factors to predict whether an individual child is likely to develop problems with language (e.g., be diagnosed with a developmental language disorder). We tested this in a sample of 146 children who took part in the UK-CDI norming project. When the children were 15-18 months old, 1,210 British parents completed: (a) the UK-CDI (a detailed assessment of vocabulary and gesture use) and (b) the Family Questionnaire (questions about health and demographic risk factors). When the children were between 4 and 6 years, 146 of the same parents completed a short questionnaire that assessed (a) whether children had been diagnosed with a disability that was likely to affect language proficiency (e.g., developmental disability, language disorder, hearing impairment), but (b) also yielded a broader measure: whether the child's language had raised any concern, either by a parent or professional. Discriminant function analyses were used to assess whether we could use different combinations of 10 risk factors, together with early vocabulary and gesture scores, to identify children (a) who had developed a language-related disability by the age of 4-6 years (20 children, 13.70% of the sample) or (b) for whom concern about language had been expressed (49 children; 33.56%). The overall accuracy of the models, and the specificity scores were high, indicating that the measures correctly identified those children without a language-related disability and whose language was not of concern. However, sensitivity scores were low, indicating that the models could not identify those children who were diagnosed with a language-related disability or whose language was of concern. Several exploratory analyses were carried out to analyse these results further. Overall, the results suggest that it is difficult to use parent reports of early risk factors and language in the first 2 years of life to predict which children are likely to be diagnosed with a language-related disability. Possible reasons for this are discussed.

How does linguistic context influence word learning?

While there are well-known demonstrations that children can use distributional information to acquire multiple components of language, the underpinnings of these achievements are unclear. In the current paper, we investigate the potential pre-requisites for a distributional learning model that can explain how children learn their first words. We review existing literature and then present the results of a series of computational simulations with Vector Space Models, a type of distributional semantic model used in Computational Linguistics, which we evaluate against vocabulary acquisition data from children. We focus on nouns and verbs, and we find that: (i) a model with flexibility to adjust for the frequency of events provides a better fit to the human data, (ii) the influence of context words is very local, especially for nouns, and (iii) words that share more contexts with other words are harder to learn.

How executive functioning, sentence processing, and vocabulary are related at 3 years of age.

There is a wealth of evidence demonstrating that executive function (EF) abilities are positively associated with language development during the preschool years, such that children with good executive functions also have larger vocabularies. However, why this is the case remains to be discovered. In this study, we focused on the hypothesis that sentence processing abilities mediate the association between EF skills and receptive vocabulary knowledge, in that the speed of language acquisition is at least partially dependent on a child's processing ability, which is itself dependent on executive control. We tested this hypothesis in longitudinal data from a cohort of 3- and 4-year-old children at three age points (37, 43, and 49 months). We found evidence, consistent with previous research, for a significant association between three EF skills (cognitive flexibility, working memory [as measured by the Backward Digit Span], and inhibition) and receptive vocabulary knowledge across this age range. However, only one of the tested sentence processing abilities (the ability to maintain multiple possible referents in mind) significantly mediated this relationship and only for one of the tested EFs (inhibition). The results suggest that children who are better able to inhibit incorrect responses are also better able to maintain multiple possible referents in mind while a sentence unfolds, a sophisticated sentence processing ability that may facilitate vocabulary learning from complex input.

Contributions of Abstract Extratextual Talk and Interactive Style to Preschoolers' Vocabulary Development.

Caregiver abstract talk during shared reading predicts preschool-age children's vocabulary development. However, previous research has focused on level of abstraction with less consideration of the style of extratextual talk. Here, we investigated the relation between these two dimensions of extratextual talk, and their contributions to variance in children's vocabulary skills. Caregiver level of abstraction was associated with an interactive reading style. Controlling for socioeconomic status and child age, high interactivity predicted children's concurrent vocabulary skills whereas abstraction did not. Controlling for earlier vocabulary skills, neither dimension of the extratextual talk predicted later vocabulary. Theoretical and practical relevance are discussed.

Children's engagement and caregivers' use of language-boosting strategies during shared book reading: A mixed methods approach.

For shared book reading to be effective for language development, the adult and child need to be highly engaged. The current paper adopted a mixed-methods approach to investigate caregiver's language-boosting behaviours and children's engagement during shared book reading. The results revealed there were more instances of joint attention and caregiver's use of prompts during moments of higher engagement. However, instances of most language-boosting behaviours were similar across episodes of higher and lower engagement. Qualitative analysis assessing the link between children's engagement and caregiver's use of speech acts, revealed that speech acts do seem to contribute to high engagement, in combination with other aspects of the interaction.

Medicaid expansion and postpartum depressive symptoms: evidence from the 2009-2018 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System survey.

PURPOSE: This population-representative study examined the association of Medicaid expansion under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) with postpartum depressive symptoms among low-income women. METHODS: We used data from the 2009 - 2018 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) surveys for 13 Medicaid expansion and 7 non-expansion states. We used a generalized difference-in-differences approach and log-binomial regression models to calculate prevalence ratios (PRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) comparing the likelihood of postpartum depressive symptoms among low-income women (≤138% of the federal poverty level) who delivered in expansion and non-expansion states. RESULTS: Adjusting for state and year fixed-effects and individual- and state-level confounders, low-income women who delivered in Medicaid expansion states had a decreased likelihood of postpartum depressive symptoms compared to low-income women who delivered in non-expansion states (PR = 0.93, 95% CI 0.80, 1.07). Results were largely consistent across multiple sensitivity analysis specifications. Results were robust to falsification tests among women with incomes >138% of the federal poverty level. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that Medicaid expansion may be associated with a small reduction in the likelihood of postpartum depressive symptoms. Future research should examine the potential for implementation of multiple supportive policies to achieve larger gains in treatment and prevention.

Antibiotic-Loaded Polymersomes for Clearance of Intracellular Burkholderia thailandensis.

Melioidosis caused by the facultative intracellular pathogen Burkholderia pseudomallei is difficult to treat due to poor intracellular bioavailability of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance. In the absence of novel compounds, polymersome (PM) encapsulation may increase the efficacy of existing antibiotics and reduce antibiotic resistance by promoting targeted, infection-specific intracellular uptake. In this study, we developed PMs composed of widely available poly(ethylene oxide)-polycaprolactone block copolymers and demonstrated their delivery to intracellular B. thailandensis infection using multispectral imaging flow cytometry (IFC) and coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering microscopy. Antibiotics were tightly sequestered in PMs and did not inhibit the growth of free-living B. thailandensis. However, on uptake of antibiotic-loaded PMs by infected macrophages, IFC demonstrated PM colocalization with intracellular B. thailandensis and a significant inhibition of their growth. We conclude that PMs are a viable approach for the targeted antibiotic treatment of persistent intracellular Burkholderia infection.

A thorough evaluation of the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) system.

In the previous decade, dozens of studies involving thousands of children across several research disciplines have made use of a combined daylong audio-recorder and automated algorithmic analysis called the LENAⓇ system, which aims to assess children's language environment. While the system's prevalence in the language acquisition domain is steadily growing, there are only scattered validation efforts on only some of its key characteristics. Here, we assess the LENAⓇ system's accuracy across all of its key measures: speaker classification, Child Vocalization Counts (CVC), Conversational Turn Counts (CTC), and Adult Word Counts (AWC). Our assessment is based on manual annotation of clips that have been randomly or periodically sampled out of daylong recordings, collected from (a) populations similar to the system's original training data (North American English-learning children aged 3-36 months), (b) children learning another dialect of English (UK), and (c) slightly older children growing up in a different linguistic and socio-cultural setting (Tsimane' learners in rural Bolivia). We find reasonably high accuracy in some measures (AWC, CVC), with more problematic levels of performance in others (CTC, precision of male adults and other children). Statistical analyses do not support the view that performance is worse for children who are dissimilar from the LENAⓇ original training set. Whether LENAⓇ results are accurate enough for a given research, educational, or clinical application depends largely on the specifics at hand. We therefore conclude with a set of recommendations to help researchers make this determination for their goals.

Syntactic Representations Are Both Abstract and Semantically Constrained: Evidence From Children's and Adults' Comprehension and Production/Priming of the English Passive.

All accounts of language acquisition agree that, by around age 4, children's knowledge of grammatical constructions is abstract, rather than tied solely to individual lexical items. The aim of the present research was to investigate, focusing on the passive, whether children's and adults' performance is additionally semantically constrained, varying according to the distance between the semantics of the verb and those of the construction. In a forced-choice pointing study (Experiment 1), both 4- to 6-year olds (N = 60) and adults (N = 60) showed support for the prediction of this semantic construction prototype account of an interaction such that the observed disadvantage for passives as compared to actives (i.e., fewer correct points/longer reaction time) was greater for experiencer-theme verbs than for agent-patient and theme-experiencer verbs (e.g., Bob was seen/hit/frightened by Wendy). Similarly, in a production/priming study (Experiment 2), both 4- to 6-year olds (N = 60) and adults (N = 60) produced fewer passives for experiencer-theme verbs than for agent-patient/theme-experiencer verbs. We conclude that these findings are difficult to explain under accounts based on the notion of A(rgument) movement or of a monostratal, semantics-free, level of syntax, and instead necessitate some form of semantic construction prototype account.

The Impact of Interactive Shared Book Reading on Children's Language Skills: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Purpose Research has indicated that interactive shared book reading can support a wide range of early language skills and that children who are read to regularly in the early years learn language faster, enter school with a larger vocabulary, and become more successful readers at school. Despite the large volume of research suggesting interactive shared reading is beneficial for language development, two fundamental issues remain outstanding: whether shared book reading interventions are equally effective (a) for children from all socioeconomic backgrounds and (b) for a range of language skills. Method To address these issues, we conducted a randomized controlled trial to investigate the effects of two 6-week interactive shared reading interventions on a range of language skills in children across the socioeconomic spectrum. One hundred and fifty children aged between 2;6 and 3;0 (years;months) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a pause reading, a dialogic reading, or an active shared reading control condition. Results The findings indicated that the interventions were effective at changing caregiver reading behaviors. However, the interventions did not boost children's language skills over and above the effect of an active reading control condition. There were also no effects of socioeconomic status. Conclusion This randomized controlled trial showed that caregivers from all socioeconomic backgrounds successfully adopted an interactive shared reading style. However, while the interventions were effective at increasing caregivers' use of interactive shared book reading behaviors, this did not have a significant impact on the children's language skills. The findings are discussed in terms of practical implications and future research. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12420539.

Improving the robustness of infant lexical processing speed measures.

Visual reaction times to target pictures after naming events are an informative measurement in language acquisition research, because gaze shifts measured in looking-while-listening paradigms are an indicator of infants' lexical speed of processing. This measure is very useful, as it can be applied from a young age onwards and has been linked to later language development. However, to obtain valid reaction times, the infant is required to switch the fixation of their eyes from a distractor to a target object. This means that usually at least half the trials have to be discarded-those where the participant is already fixating the target at the onset of the target word-so that no reaction time can be measured. With few trials, reliability suffers, which is especially problematic when studying individual differences. In order to solve this problem, we developed a gaze-triggered looking-while-listening paradigm. The trials do not differ from the original paradigm apart from the fact that the target object is chosen depending on the infant's eye fixation before naming. The object the infant is looking at becomes the distractor and the other object is used as the target, requiring a fixation switch, and thus providing a reaction time. We tested our paradigm with forty-three 18-month-old infants, comparing the results to those from the original paradigm. The Gaze-triggered paradigm yielded more valid reaction time trials, as anticipated. The results of a ranked correlation between the conditions confirmed that the manipulated paradigm measures the same concept as the original paradigm.

Non-adjacent dependency learning in infancy, and its link to language development.

To acquire language, infants must learn how to identify words and linguistic structure in speech. Statistical learning has been suggested to assist both of these tasks. However, infants' capacity to use statistics to discover words and structure together remains unclear. Further, it is not yet known how infants'  statistical learning ability relates to their language development. We trained 17-month-old infants on an artificial language comprising non-adjacent dependencies, and examined their looking times on tasks assessing sensitivity to words and structure using an eye-tracked head-turn-preference paradigm. We measured infants' vocabulary size using a Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) concurrently and at 19, 21, 24, 25, 27, and 30 months to relate performance to language development. Infants could segment the words from speech, demonstrated by a significant difference in looking times to words versus part-words. Infants' segmentation performance was significantly related to their vocabulary size (receptive and expressive) both currently, and over time (receptive until 24 months, expressive until 30 months), but was not related to the rate of vocabulary growth. The data also suggest infants may have developed sensitivity to generalised structure, indicating similar statistical learning mechanisms may contribute to the discovery of words and structure in speech, but this was not related to vocabulary size.

Do the Eyes Have It? A Systematic Review on the Role of Eye Gaze in Infant Language Development.

Eye gaze is a ubiquitous cue in child-caregiver interactions, and infants are highly attentive to eye gaze from very early on. However, the question of why infants show gaze-sensitive behavior, and what role this sensitivity to gaze plays in their language development, is not yet well-understood. To gain a better understanding of the role of eye gaze in infants' language learning, we conducted a broad systematic review of the developmental literature for all studies that investigate the role of eye gaze in infants' language development. Across 77 peer-reviewed articles containing data from typically developing human infants (0-24 months) in the domain of language development, we identified two broad themes. The first tracked the effect of eye gaze on four developmental domains: (1) vocabulary development, (2) word-object mapping, (3) object processing, and (4) speech processing. Overall, there is considerable evidence that infants learn more about objects and are more likely to form word-object mappings in the presence of eye gaze cues, both of which are necessary for learning words. In addition, there is good evidence for longitudinal relationships between infants' gaze following abilities and later receptive and expressive vocabulary. However, many domains (e.g., speech processing) are understudied; further work is needed to decide whether gaze effects are specific to tasks, such as word-object mapping or whether they reflect a general learning enhancement mechanism. The second theme explored the reasons why eye gaze might be facilitative for learning, addressing the question of whether eye gaze is treated by infants as a specialized socio-cognitive cue. We concluded that the balance of evidence supports the idea that eye gaze facilitates infants' learning by enhancing their arousal, memory, and attentional capacities to a greater extent than other low-level attentional cues. However, as yet, there are too few studies that directly compare the effect of eye gaze cues and non-social, attentional cues for strong conclusions to be drawn. We also suggest that there might be a developmental effect, with eye gaze, over the course of the first 2 years of life, developing into a truly ostensive cue that enhances language learning across the board.