Resilience and risk in word inferencing and vocabulary growth for grade schoolers from low socioeconomic status homes

In grade school, learning new words allows children to access, think about, and discuss new ideas and building a robust, age appropriate vocabulary supports reading comprehension throughout school. Evidence shows that children from low socioeconomic homes, on average, have more difficulty learning new words from written materials in the classroom, though whether this carries over to learning from auditory materials is unclear. Further, some children from similar environments defy the odds and excel at word learning. In this project we use brain and behavioral measures to identify which children struggle vs excel at word learning, in which context (auditory vs written) and why. From this data we can provide tailored learning plans to help support vocabulary growth for all children in grade school, allowing each to reach their full potential. The objective of this proposal is to use behavioral and brain measures to study variability in the process of word inferencing (a key component of word learning) in the auditory and written modalities within a group of children from lower SES homes, and the implications of those differences for vocabulary growth 6 months and 1 year later. We study 250 children across 2 age groups: ages 8-9 and 11-12 (approx. 3rd-7th grade). These are ages when reading greatly improves, and expectations of “reading to learn” become critical across academics. Children complete language and cognitive assessments as well as auditory and written word inferencing tasks as their EEG is recorded. This is measured in relation to parent-completed home environment surveys. Assessments are conducted after 6 months and 1 year to measure vocabulary growth. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.