State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
School of Preschool Education, Beijing Institute of Education, Beijing 100009, China.
Cereb Cortex. 2023 Sep 26;33(19):10426-10440. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhad293.
Although it is well recognized that parent-child shared reading produces positive effects on children's language ability, the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms are not well understood. Here, we addressed this issue by measuring brain activities from mother-child dyads simultaneously during a shared book reading task using functional near infrared spectroscopy hyperscanning. The behavioral results showed that the long-term experience of shared reading significantly predicted children's language ability. Interestingly, the prediction was moderated by children's age: for older children over 30 months, the more the shared reading experience, the better the language performance; for younger children below 30 months, however, no significant relationship was observed. The brain results showed significant interpersonal neural synchronization between mothers and children at the superior temporal cortex, which was closely associated with older children's language ability through the mediation of long-term experience of shared reading. Finally, the results showed that the instantaneous quality of shared reading contributed to children's language ability through enhancing interpersonal neural synchronization and increasing long-term experience. Based on these findings, we tentatively proposed a theoretical model for the relationship among interpersonal neural synchronization, shared reading and children's language ability. These findings will facilitate our understanding on the role of shared reading in children's language development.
虽然人们普遍认识到亲子共读对儿童语言能力有积极影响，但其中的神经认知机制尚不清楚。在这里，我们通过功能近红外光谱超扫描技术，在亲子共读任务中同时测量来自母子对的大脑活动，来解决这个问题。行为结果表明，长期的共享阅读经验显著预测了儿童的语言能力。有趣的是，这种预测受到儿童年龄的调节：对于 30 个月以上的大龄儿童，共享阅读经验越多，语言表现越好；然而，对于 30 个月以下的年幼儿童，没有观察到显著的关系。大脑结果显示，在颞上皮质区域，母亲和儿童之间存在显著的人际神经同步，这种同步通过共享阅读的长期经验与大龄儿童的语言能力密切相关。最后，结果表明，共享阅读的即时质量通过增强人际神经同步和增加长期经验来促进儿童的语言能力。基于这些发现，我们初步提出了人际神经同步、共享阅读和儿童语言能力之间关系的理论模型。这些发现将有助于我们理解共享阅读在儿童语言发展中的作用。
