Sudha Arunachalam - US grants

The Boston University Conference on Language Development will be held at Boston University each November from 2012 through 2016. The conference is an internationally recognized meeting for researchers in the areas of first and second language acquisition, bilingualism, language disorders, and literacy development. It is attended by 500-600 researchers from around the world each year, providing a venue for dissemination of research, collaboration, and networking. The attendees typically include an even mix of young and senior researchers. The presentations are chosen by anonymous peer review, with a published proceedings. Since 1976, the faculty and students of Boston University's Applied Linguistics Program have organized and run the conference. Dr. Paul Hagstrom leads the team of organizers for the 2012 conference. The National Science Foundation award contributes to the support of the student organizers, travel assistance for student presenters, and accessibility through sign language interpreters.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The experiments described in this proposal investigate the process by which young children learn new words. Children as young as two years old can rapidly assign a meaning to a new word that they hear. There is a strong intuitive assumption that to establish this meaning, learners must hear the word in the presence of its referent, for example, hearing [kaet] in the presence of a cat, or [kIk] in the presence of a kickig action. Yet, in the natural course of events, words, especially verbs, are often introduced in the absence of their referents (e.g., Let's pack our bag). Strikingly, analyses reveal that when conversing with their young children, most of the verbs produced by mothers refer to absent events. How, then, do they establish meaning for new verbs? We aim to develop a paradigm and offer an empirical foundation to address this issue. We do so by presenting 2-year-olds with novel verbs in linguistic contexts only, without a relevant visual scene. After a delay, we offer them candidate visual events to determine if they have (a) assigned meaning to the novel verbs, and (b) can recall these meanings even after a delay. We also assess whether a period of sleep during the delay helps toddlers integrate the new verb into their existing lexical knowledge. The proposed work aims to characterize the process of vocabulary acquisition. Understanding the mechanisms of language acquisition is crucial not only to a theoretical understanding of language acquisition and cognitive development, but also has implications for helping children with developmental delays. The research described here contributes to a growing base of knowledge about learning in typically-developing children, which is key in understanding how learning may diverge in children with language delays and disabilities. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The proposed work aims to characterize the process of vocabulary acquisition. Understanding the mechanisms of language acquisition is crucial not only to a theoretical understanding of language acquisition and cognitive development, but also has implications for applied research aimed at helping children with developmental and language delays. The research described here contributes to a growing base of knowledge about learning in typically-developing children, which is key in understanding how learning may diverge in children with language delays and disabilities.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Considering the high incidence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (latest CDC estimate: 1 in 50), its impact on family stress and medical costs, and the devastating effects of its associated communication deficits on long-term outcomes, research aimed at improving language and cognitive skills in this population in early childhood is critical. We seek to understand conditions underlying successful language development in young children with ASD in order to develop interventions that are most likely to promote their language and cognitive skills, and to improve their educational, vocational, and personal outcomes. Specifically, we focus on improving receptive vocabulary, or understanding of word meanings, in children with ASD. Receptive vocabulary knowledge is a prerequisite to further language development. It is therefore critical for interventions in the infant, toddler, and preschool years to increase receptive vocabulary in children with disabilities. The goal of this proposal is to discover conditions under which children with ASD acquire receptive vocabulary meanings, retain them over time, and generalize them to new exemplars differing slightly from those with which the word was initially presented. As yet little is known about the cognitive processes underlying word learning in ASD. It is therefore likely that we have not discovered the optimal conditions for promoting learning in interventions. We concentrate on two processes that impact learning in typical development, but have not been well studied in ASD: 1) use of linguistic context to acquire word meanings, and 2) consolidation of memories during sleep. First, we ask if-given the social impairments associated with ASD-children with ASD acquire word meanings more successfully in non-social and non-interactive contexts, but rich linguistic contexts. We compare performance in a non-social context to a social context modeled on standard therapies. Second, we ask if understanding memory consolidation in ASD can improve our ability to promote retention and generalization of word meanings. This work will provide a basis for new interventions to increase receptive vocabulary. In future work, we will use the findings to develop and test such an intervention. This proposal is intended to provide the PI with a structured career development plan that will allow her to carry out this research, building on her extensive background in language development in typically developing populations, and adding expertise in two new areas: 1) language development in young children with ASD, and 2) sleep-dependent memory consolidation as it relates to language learning. The training provided by this award will transition the PI from basic research in language development to an independent career in translational research, studying language learning in populations with communication disorders.

PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT We seek five years of funding to support improvements to the Boston University Conference on Language Development, which will take place at Boston University each year around the first weekend in November. Now in its 41st year, the conference is internationally recognized as one of the most important annual meetings bringing together researchers in different areas of language acquisition and development, including first and second language acquisition, language disorders, bilingualism, and literacy development. The meeting comprises oral presentations and posters selected through peer review, as well as invited keynote and plenary speakers, symposia on topics of current interest, a research funding workshop, and a publisher exhibit. In this proposal, we are requesting funds for two components to the conference that will increase the quality, visibility, interdisciplinary contribution, health relevance, and accessibility to students (especially students from under- represented populations). First, we would like support for a professional development workshop for students and postdocs, bringing in speakers to discuss a variety of important professional development issues. Second, we will offer new travel awards that give priority to students from underrepresented minorities. The BUCLD serves as a prime venue to bring together researchers from all different areas of language development, who do not typically interact or encounter each other's work regularly elsewhere, thus fostering substantial interaction across theoretical and disciplinary boundaries. It also offers excellent training for students and postdocs, both in the form of access to high quality scholarship and in training activities such as an NIH/NSF funding workshop. The two key pieces we seek to add will not only ensure that the BUCLD continues to be a high quality venue for these activities, but will allow the conference to grow in important new directions that are demonstrated priorities for the scientific community as well as NIH.

The Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD) will be held at Boston University each November from 2017 through 2021. BUCLD is an internationally recognized meeting of researchers in language acquisition and development, including first and second language acquisition, language disorders, bilingualism, and literacy development. Now in its forty-second year, BUCLD promotes the progress of science by providing a major venue for dissemination of scholarly findings, for initiation and development of collaborations, and for professional networking. The conference consists of approximately 190 presentations selected through peer review, as well as invited keynote and plenary speakers, two symposia on topics of current interest, a research funding workshop, a professionalization workshop for students and postdoctoral scholars, and a publisher exhibit. Attendees number over 500 researchers from around the world, from undergraduates up through senior faculty. Full ASL interpreting coverage is provided throughout the conference, and conference proceedings are published soon after the conference. Since 1976, the faculty and students of Boston University have organized and run the conference; Dr. Charles Chang, Dr. Sudha Arunachalam, and Dr. Paul Hagstrom lead the team of organizers for the 2017 conference.

Funding from the National Science Foundation will support education and enhance accessibility, diversity, and inclusion at BUCLD by subsidizing student travel, including that of underrepresented minorities, and the time of the student organizers of the conference, graduate students in Linguistics and allied fields. Support for student travel will allow student contributions, regularly among the highest-rated abstract submissions, to be presented at the conference without undue hardship and will increase the exposure of students to the top research and researchers in the field in a friendly and interactive environment. Furthermore, support for student organizers will allow BUCLD to continue to play an important role in training students as future professionals, including undergraduates and women.

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Language ability is often impaired in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Language ability in the preschool years is a powerful predictor of outcomes. In these early years, parents are a primary source of early language. It is therefore crucial to study the language input that parents of children with ASD provide and children's abilities to comprehend and learn from that input. In the current proposal, we study how preschoolers with ASD and typically- developing (TD) peers assign meaning to the language they hear, and how parental language input supports these efforts. More specifically, our goal is to understand how children learn the meanings of new words. We focus on verbs because the sentence contexts in which unfamiliar verbs are heard provide helpful information for TD children to acquire their meaning. However, we know little about what kinds of sentence contexts are most useful in ASD, or about what kinds of contexts parents provide in their own speech. To pursue this issue, we present children with unfamiliar words either in carefully constructed linguistic contexts, varying how informative and easy-to-process they are, as well as the number of repetitions of each context (Study 1) or unscripted sentence contexts produced by their own parent (Study 2). We use eye-tracking measures to assess how children understand the contexts and assign the words a meaning. This research will shed light on the mechanisms underlying language learning in ASD and in TD and will support the development of effective language interventions, including parent-based interventions.

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Most children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) also have below-age vocabulary knowledge. These deficits are linked to their poor social communication skills. Vocabulary knowledge in the preschool years is a powerful predictor of outcomes. It is therefore crucial to understand how preschoolers with ASD can acquire new vocabulary. In the current proposal, we study how preschoolers with ASD and typically-developing (TD) children learn vocabulary in situations that place minimal demands on social communication skills to see if these can provide an alternate avenue for vocabulary instruction. Specifically, we study whether children can learn new words in overhearing contexts in which they are not directly addressed, but instead are witnesses to a conversation between two adults, one of whom introduces a new word to the other. Prior work has shown that TD children can learn new words in such situations, and there is preliminary evidence from the PI?s; work that children with ASD can as well. We also examine whether children can learn from these interactions when they take place on video, and whether they can acquire verbs and pronouns as well as nouns from these interactions. This research will shed light on the mechanisms underlying language learning in ASD and in TD and will support the development of effective language interventions.

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The goal of this project is to understand how quantity and quality of the language input directed to children by their caregivers is influenced by genetically-influenced child characteristics (language ability as measured by standard assessment as well as children's productions during the interactions, and temperament as measured by standard assessments). The overarching activity of this research project is transcription and analysis of naturalistic parent-child interactions that have already been collected as part of a longitudinal study of over 300 same-sex twin pairs and their parents. The data set consists of one-on-one play interactions between a parent with each twin separately, at each of three time points (ages 3, 4, and 5 years). This unique sample allows investigation of how the parent's linguistic input to each child differs. Because half of the sample consists of monozygotic (genetically identical) twins and the other half of dizygotic twins (sharing approximately 50% of their segregating genes), we can make inferences about genetic influences on traits by the degree of similarity between members of a monozygotic and dizygotic twin pair. In this investigation we focus on how genetically-influenced traits affect the properties of the parent's linguistic input. Quantitative genetic model- fitting analyses will reveal bidirectional relations between parental linguistic input and child characteristics at the level of etiology by informing about genetic and environmental influences on parental linguistic input at age 3, 4, and 5; stability and change in parental linguistic input across age; and sources of covariance between parental linguistic input and child characteristics both within and across age. This is a timely investigation: much attention is currently being given to the study of environmental or parental traits that affect linguistic input, such as the parent's level of education, and how interventions might train parents within high-risk groups to improve the quality of the input they provide. The proposed work adds another dimension to these efforts by investigating child-specific features and how these may influence parental linguistic input above and beyond environmental and parental traits. The knowledge gained will reveal how these child factors contribute to the parental linguistic input children receive and the longitudinal consequences of this relationship.