Cashon Cara H, Ha Oh-Ryeong, Graf Estes Katharine, Saffran Jenny R, Mervis Carolyn B
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Louisville, USA.
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Louisville, USA.
Cognition. 2016 Sep;154:165-168. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2016.05.009. Epub 2016 Jun 11.
Williams syndrome (WS) is a rare genetic disorder associated with delays in language and cognitive development. The reasons for the language delay are unknown. Statistical learning is a domain-general mechanism recruited for early language acquisition. In the present study, we investigated whether infants with WS were able to detect the statistical structure in continuous speech. Eighteen 8- to 20-month-olds with WS were familiarized with 2min of a continuous stream of synthesized nonsense words; the statistical structure of the speech was the only cue to word boundaries. They were tested on their ability to discriminate statistically-defined "words" and "part-words" (which crossed word boundaries) in the artificial language. Despite significant cognitive and language delays, infants with WS were able to detect the statistical regularities in the speech stream. These findings suggest that an inability to track the statistical properties of speech is unlikely to be the primary basis for the delays in the onset of language observed in infants with WS. These results provide the first evidence of statistical learning by infants with developmental delays.
威廉姆斯综合征（WS）是一种罕见的遗传性疾病，与语言和认知发展迟缓有关。语言延迟的原因尚不清楚。统计学习是一种用于早期语言习得的通用机制。在本研究中，我们调查了患有威廉姆斯综合征的婴儿是否能够检测连续语音中的统计结构。18名8至20个月大的威廉姆斯综合征患儿熟悉了2分钟连续的合成无意义单词流；语音的统计结构是单词边界的唯一线索。他们接受了在人工语言中区分统计定义的“单词”和“部分单词”（跨越单词边界）的能力测试。尽管存在明显的认知和语言延迟，但患有威廉姆斯综合征的婴儿能够检测语音流中的统计规律。这些发现表明，无法追踪语音的统计特性不太可能是患有威廉姆斯综合征的婴儿语言开始延迟的主要原因。这些结果提供了发育迟缓婴儿进行统计学习的首个证据。
