Rule Response Choices Target How the Brain Learns to Read in Environments with High-Risk of Illiteracy: an fNIRS Study of Reading Development in Rural Côte d’Ivoire Kaja K. Jasińska 12 , Fabrice Tanoh 3 , Axel Seri 4 , Sosthene Guei 4 1 iUniversity of Delaware, Newark, DE, 2 Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT 3 Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, 4 Centre d'Action et de Recherche pour la Paix, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire INTRODUCTION Children living in poverty grow up facing numerous obstacles to literacy, including limited time and/or resources dedicated to learning, impoverished learning environments, and inadequate education resources. Child Labor in Cote d’Ivoire: Estimated 1.3 million children between the ages of 5- 17 are working in cocoa production, 14.8% of children working in cocoa production are not attending school (Tulane University, 2015) Specific Aim: To examine the impact of poor educational access, cocoa labor, and impoverished environments on the behavioral and neural substrates of: • bilingual language development in French and Attié/Baoule/Abidji/Bété • executive functions, and in turn, • reading ability CONTACT Kaja Jasińska, PhD [email protected]; www.haskins.yale.edu/staff/jasinska Supported by the Jacobs Foundation Early Career Fellowship SCIENTIFIC CAPACITY BUIDING METHODS Robust collaboration with local researchers and long-term mentorship for Ivorian students to provide opportunities to conduct child development research and advance skills in transition to independent global scientists. Participants. 625 children ages 6-14 in grades 1,3,5 (French: CP1, CE1, CM1) Language Assessment and Literacy Assessment (Yopp et all, 1995; Woodcock et al., 2001 ) Cognitive Assessment (NIH Cognitive Assessment Toolbox) Survey of Home/School Environment and Child Labor Based on USAID Early Grade Reading Assessment and Tulane University Survey of Child Labor in West African Cocoa Growing Areas (2015) Measures school attendance and school habits, access to literacy materials, language background, family structure, socioeconomic status, child involvement in cocoa agriculture and other domestic and economic activities Field fNIRS neuroimaging (Jasinska & Guei, 2018) Reading: Print+Speech Task Executive Functions: Rule Switch Task Task Description French Attié Phonological Awareness Identification, elision, segmentation Tonemic Awareness Identify words that “share tone” to target n/a Vocabulary Synonym and antonym generation Rapid Automatized Naming Timed digit naming n/a Oral Comprehension Listen to story + comprehension questions Reading Letter, word, pseudoword reading n/a Task Description Working Memory: List Sorting Task Sequence items in a 2-7 item list (animals) according to size. Attention: Flanker Task Indicate the arrow direction in congruent and incongruent trials Boys more exposed to hazardous working conditions (spraying pesticide, cutting trees, burning trees, and/or carrying heavy loads) DISCUSSION BEHAVIORAL RESULTS Cocoa Labor Agricultural Labor % of Children Cocoa Labor 55% Hazardous Cocoa Labor 73% (of children working in cocoa) Other Plantation 40% Never 5% Predictor Std. Beta p-value Age 0.101 <.05 Gender 0.194 <.0001 Family SES 0.060 >.05 Economic Work 0.216 <.0001 Domestic Work 0.152 <.0001 Cocoa Labor 50% of children are working on cocoa plantations, >70% of these children are engaged in hazardous labor on cocoa plantations – this has negative associations with literacy Literacy Literacy outcomes are overall extremely poor. 5 th graders’ (CM1) average scores indicate little to no reading competency Bilingualism French and local language phonological awareness independently predict literacy– local language matters! Brain Bases of Reading Stronger readers show patterns of neural activation much like what has previously been reported for Western children. Poorer readers (mean age = 10;6) do not show the same pattern of neural sensitivity to lexicality. These poorer readers do not resemble preliterate children nor children with reading disorder. SES has a strong impact on functional brain activation in the prefrontal cortex, which in turn, predicts reading outcomes. Understanding the complex relationships between impoverished environment, brain development, children’s linguistics and cognitive development, and reading outcomes yields new information about reading development in environments with a high risk of illiteracy. Lexicality Words Pseudowords Falsefonts/Vocoded Modality Visual jeu val val Auditory pied opmu ///// Rule Repeat Switch Color Shape Color and Shape Letter CP1 CE1 CM1 0 25 50 75 100 Grade Mean Grade CP1 CE1 CM1 Word Pseudoword CP1 CE1 CM1 CP1 CE1 CM1 0 10 20 30 40 50 Classe Classe CP1 CE1 CM1 Grade Grade CP1 CE1 CM1 Predictor Letter b Word b Pseudo. b Age 0.83 0.08 -0.34 Gender -0.99 -1.70 -2.03 + SES -0.40 -0.26 -0.29 + Cocoa Labor 1.02** 0.42* 0.44** Hazardous Labor (Y/N) -11.20** -3.32 -3.36 + Domestic Work -1.06 -0.44 -0.25 Economic Work 1.14 + 0.27 0.22 PA (French) 1.02** 0.61** 0.57** Vocab. (French) 0.22 0.16 0.04 PA (Local) 0.50** 0.38** 0.28** Vocab. (Local) -0.23 -0.08 -0.14 Oral Lang. (French) 1.02 + 0.08 -0.03 Oral Lang (Local) -0.45 0.31 0.74 Tonemic Awareness 0.09 0.00 -0.06 RAN -0.12* -0.01 -0.01 Working Memory -0.49 -0.42 -0.53* Inhibitory Control 0.40 0.21 0.20 NEUROIMAGING RESULTS Reading Circuit Stronger Readers (> 60/100 letter task) Word > False Fonts Poorer Readers (< 40/100 letter task) False Fonts > Word Language, Cognitive, and Literacy Assessment Executive Functions Predictor L. DLPFC (BA9) R. DLPFC (BA46) R. DLPFC (BA9) L. VLPFC (BA44) std. ! (SE) std. ! (SE) std. ! (SE) std. ! (SE) Age -0.246 (0.10)* -0.205 (0.10) + -0.241 (0.10)* -0.239 (0.10)* Gender -0.445 (0.26)+ -0.295 (0.27) -0.421 (0.26) -0.410 (0.27) BMI 0.050 (0.11) 0.041 (0.11) 0.049 (0.11) 0.047 (0.11) SES -0.227 (0.11)* -0.236 (0.11)* -0.233 (0.11)* -0.234 (0.11)* Cocoa Labor 0.023 (0.20) -0.050 (0.20) 0.008 (0.20) 0.002 (0.20) Hazardous L. 0.043 (0.18) 0.058 (0.19) 0.047 (0.18) 0.048 (0.18) Domestic L. 0.204 (0.13) 0.229 (0.13) + 0.212 (0.13) 0.215 (0.13) Economic L. 0.085 (0.12) -0.013 (0.12) 0.066 (0.12) 0.058 (0.12) Predictor Letter b Word b Pseudo. b L. DLPFC -544.626 (189.81)** -286.182 (124.38)* -222.890 (101.51)* R. DLPFC -933.45 (490.13)* -170.767(138.80) -185.294 (260.18) L. VLPFC 1206.369 (370.78)** 516.034 (246.57)* 421.186 (201.24)* R. VLPFC -30.520 (52.27) 16.722 (33.40) 7.666 (27.26) **p<.01, *p<.05, +p<.1 **p<.01, *p<.05, +p<.1