{"pk":26421,"title":"Statistical Learning Ability Can Overcome the Negative Impact of Low\nSocioeconomic Status on Language Development","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Statistical learning (SL) is believed to be a mechanism that enables\nsuccessful language acquisition. Language acquisition in turn is\nheavily influenced by environmental factors such as\nsocioeconomic status (SES). However, it is unknown to what\nextent SL abilities interact with SES in affecting language\noutcomes. To examine this potential interaction, we measured\nevent-related potentials (ERPs) in 38 children aged 7-12 while\nperforming a visual SL task consisting of a sequence of stimuli that\ncontained covert statistical probabilities that predicted a target\nstimulus. Hierarchical regression results indicated that SL ability\nmoderated the relationship between SES (average of both\ncaregiver’s education level) and language scores (grammar, and\nmarginally with receptive vocabulary). For children with high SL\nability, SES had a weaker effect on language compared to children\nwith low SL ability, suggesting that having good SL abilities could\nhelp ameliorate the disadvantages associated with being raised in a\nfamily with lower SES.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"statistical learning; language development;\nsocioeconomic status"},{"word":"event-related potentials (ERP); cognitive\ndevelopment"}],"section":"Papers","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6c93j4vb","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Leyla","middle_name":"","last_name":"Eghbalzad","name_suffix":"","institution":"Georgia State University","department":""},{"first_name":"Joanne","middle_name":"A.","last_name":"Deocampo","name_suffix":"","institution":"Georgia State University","department":""},{"first_name":"Christopher","middle_name":"M.","last_name":"Conway","name_suffix":"","institution":"Georgia State University","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2016-01-01T21:00:00+03:00","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/26421/galley/16057/download/"}]}