International Centre for Language and Communicative Development: Do Complement Clauses Really Support False-belief Reasoning? A Longitudinal Study with English-speaking 2- to 3-year-olds, 2014-2020

To examine whether children’s acquisition of perspective-marking language supports development in their ability to reason about mental states, we conducted a longitudinal study testing whether proficiency with complement clauses around age three explained variance in false-belief reasoning six months later. 45 English-speaking 2-and-3-year-olds (23 female, Time 1 age range: 33-41 months) from middle-class families in the North-West of England took part in the study, which addresses a series of uncertainties in previous studies: We avoided the confound of using complement clauses in the false-belief tests, assessed complement-clause proficiency with a new comprehensive test designed to capture gradual development, and controlled for individual differences in executive functioning that could affect both linguistic and sociocognitive performance. Further, we aimed to disentangle the influence of two aspects of complement-clause acquisition: proficiency with the perspective-marking syntactic structure itself and understanding of the specific mental verbs used in this syntactic structure. To investigate direction of causality, we also tested whether early false-belief reasoning predicted later complement-clause proficiency. The results provide strong support for the hypothesis that complement-clause acquisition promotes development in false-belief reasoning. Proficiency with the general structure of complement-clause constructions and understanding of the specific mental verbs “think” and “know” in 3rd-person complements at Time 1 both contributed uniquely to predicting false-belief performance at Time 2. However, false-belief performance at Time 1 also contributed uniquely to predicting complement-clause proficiency at Time 2. Together, these results indicate a bidirectional relationship between linguistic and sociocognitive development.<p>The International Centre for Language and Communicative Development (LuCiD) will bring about a transformation in our understanding of how children learn to communicate, and deliver the crucial information needed to design effective interventions in child healthcare, communicative development and early years education. Learning to use language to communicate is hugely important for society. Failure to develop language and communication skills at the right age is a major predictor of educational and social inequality in later life. To tackle this problem, we need to know the answers to a number of questions: How do children learn language from what they see and hear? What do measures of children's brain activity tell us about what they know? and How do differences between children and differences in their environments affect how children learn to talk? Answering these questions is a major challenge for researchers. LuCiD will bring together researchers from a wide range of different backgrounds to address this challenge. The LuCiD Centre will be based in the North West of England and will coordinate five streams of research in the UK and abroad. It will use multiple methods to address central issues, create new technology products, and communicate evidence-based information directly to other researchers and to parents, practitioners and policy-makers. LuCiD's RESEARCH AGENDA will address four key questions in language and communicative development: 1) ENVIRONMENT: How do children combine the different kinds of information that they see and hear to learn language? 2) KNOWLEDGE: How do children learn the word meanings and grammatical categories of their language? 3) COMMUNICATION: How do children learn to use their language to communicate effectively? 4) VARIATION: How do children learn languages with different structures and in different cultural environments? The fifth stream, the LANGUAGE 0-5 PROJECT, will connect the other four streams. It will follow 80 English learning children from 6 months to 5 years, studying how and why some children's language development is different from others. A key feature of this project is that the children will take part in studies within the other four streams. This will enable us to build a complete picture of language development from the very beginning through to school readiness. Applying different methods to study children's language development will constrain the types of explanations that can be proposed, helping us create much more accurate theories of language development. We will observe and record children in natural interaction as well as studying their language in more controlled experiments, using behavioural measures and correlations with brain activity (EEG). Transcripts of children's language and interaction will be analysed and used to model how these two are related using powerful computer algorithms. LuciD's TECHNOLOGY AGENDA will develop new multi-method approaches and create new technology products for researchers, healthcare and education professionals. We will build a 'big data' management and sharing system to make all our data freely available; create a toolkit of software (LANGUAGE RESEARCHER'S TOOLKIT) so that researchers can analyse speech more easily and more accurately; and develop a smartphone app (the BABYTALK APP) that will allow parents, researchers and practitioners to monitor, assess and promote children's language development. With the help of six IMPACT CHAMPIONS, LuCiD's COMMUNICATIONS AGENDA will ensure that parents know how they can best help their children learn to talk, and give healthcare and education professionals and policy-makers the information they need to create intervention programmes that are firmly rooted in the latest research findings.</p>

为探究儿童视角标记语言的习得是否支持其心理状态推理能力的发展，我们开展了一项纵向研究，旨在检验三岁左右儿童的补语从句（complement clauses）熟练度能否解释六个月后错误信念推理（false-belief reasoning）的变异量。本研究共纳入45名2至3岁的英语使用者儿童（23名女性，时间1的年龄范围为33至41个月），均来自英格兰西北部的中产阶级家庭。本研究解决了既往研究中的一系列悬而未决的问题：我们规避了在错误信念测试中使用补语从句所带来的混淆变量，采用全新的综合性测试工具评估补语从句熟练度，以捕捉语言发展的渐进式过程，并控制了可能同时影响语言与社会认知表现的执行功能（executive functioning）个体差异。此外，我们旨在厘清补语从句习得的两个维度的影响：一是视角标记句法结构本身的熟练度，二是对该句法结构中特定心理动词的理解。为探究因果方向，我们还检验了早期错误信念推理能否预测后续的补语从句熟练度。研究结果为“补语从句习得促进错误信念推理能力发展”这一假说提供了强有力的支持。时间1点测量的补语从句结构通用熟练度，以及对第三人称补语从句中特定心理动词‘think’与‘know’的理解，均对预测时间2点的错误信念表现具有独特贡献。然而，时间1点的错误信念表现同样对预测时间2点的补语从句熟练度具有独特贡献。综合来看，这些结果表明语言发展与社会认知发展之间存在双向关系。

国际语言与交际发展中心（International Centre for Language and Communicative Development，以下简称LuCiD）将彻底变革我们对儿童沟通学习机制的认知，并可为儿童医疗、交际发展与早期教育领域的有效干预方案设计提供关键支撑信息。学会使用语言进行沟通对社会而言至关重要。未能在适宜年龄发展语言与沟通技能，是日后出现教育与社会不平等的重要预测因素。为解决这一问题，我们需要解答诸多核心疑问：儿童如何从所见所闻中整合信息以学习语言？儿童脑活动测量结果能揭示其哪些认知状态？儿童个体差异与所处环境差异如何影响儿童语言学习进程？解答这些问题对研究者而言是重大挑战。LuCiD将汇聚来自不同学科背景的研究者，共同攻克这一重大科研挑战。该中心将落户英格兰西北部，并协调英国及海外的五大研究方向。它将采用多元研究方法解决核心科学问题，开发全新技术产品，并将循证信息直接传递给其他研究者、家长、从业者与政策制定者。LuCiD的研究议程将聚焦语言与交际发展的四大核心问题：1） 环境因素：儿童如何整合所见所闻的各类信息以学习语言？2） 知识习得：儿童如何掌握其母语的词义与语法范畴？3） 交际能力：儿童如何学会运用语言进行有效沟通？4） 个体差异：儿童如何在不同文化环境中学习结构各异的语言？第五大研究方向为‘0-5岁语言项目’（LANGUAGE 0-5 PROJECT），将与其余四个研究方向建立联动。该项目将追踪80名英语学习儿童，从6个月大直至5岁，探究部分儿童语言发展异于他人的方式与原因。该项目的一大核心特征是，参与儿童将参与其余四个研究方向内的实验，这将使我们能够完整描绘从语言发展伊始直至儿童具备入学准备能力的全貌。采用多元方法研究儿童语言发展，将限制可提出的解释类型，助力我们构建更为精准的语言发展理论。我们将在自然互动场景中观察并记录儿童的行为，同时通过行为测量与脑活动（EEG）相关性分析，在更受控的实验环境中研究儿童语言。我们将分析儿童语言与互动的转录文本，并借助高性能计算机算法建模二者间的关联。LuCiD的技术议程将开发新型多元研究方法，并为研究者、医疗与教育从业者打造全新技术产品。我们将构建一套‘大数据’管理与共享系统，使所有研究数据均可免费获取；开发一款软件工具包（LANGUAGE RESEARCHER'S TOOLKIT，语言研究者工具包），帮助研究者更轻松、更精准地分析语音数据；并开发一款智能手机应用程序（BABYTALK APP），使家长、研究者与从业者能够监测、评估并促进儿童的语言发展。在六位影响力倡导者（IMPACT CHAMPIONS）的协助下，LuCiD的传播议程将确保家长了解如何最佳助力儿童学习语言，并为医疗与教育从业者及政策制定者提供所需信息，以制定基于最新研究成果的干预方案。