Merz Emily C, Maskus Elaine A, Melvin Samantha A, He Xiaofu, Noble Kimberly G
Teachers College, Columbia University.
Columbia University Medical Center.
Child Dev. 2020 May;91(3):846-860. doi: 10.1111/cdev.13239. Epub 2019 Mar 28.
The mechanisms underlying socioeconomic disparities in children's reading skills are not well understood. This study examined associations among socioeconomic background, home linguistic input, brain structure, and reading skills in 5-to-9-year-old children (N = 94). Naturalistic home audio recordings and high-resolution, T1-weighted MRI scans were acquired. Children who experienced more adult-child conversational turns or adult words had greater left perisylvian cortical surface area. Language input mediated the association between parental education and left perisylvian cortical surface area. Language input was indirectly associated with children's reading skills via left perisylvian surface area. Left perisylvian surface area mediated the association between parental education and children's reading skills. Language experience may thus partially explain socioeconomic disparities in language-supporting brain structure and in turn reading skills.
儿童阅读技能方面社会经济差异背后的机制尚未得到充分理解。本研究调查了94名5至9岁儿童的社会经济背景、家庭语言输入、脑结构和阅读技能之间的关联。采集了自然状态下的家庭音频记录以及高分辨率T1加权磁共振成像扫描数据。经历更多成人与儿童对话轮次或成人话语的儿童，其左侧颞周皮质表面积更大。语言输入在父母教育程度与左侧颞周皮质表面积之间的关联中起中介作用。语言输入通过左侧颞周表面积与儿童阅读技能间接相关。左侧颞周表面积在父母教育程度与儿童阅读技能之间的关联中起中介作用。因此，语言经历可能部分解释了在支持语言的脑结构以及阅读技能方面存在的社会经济差异。
