[MUSIC] It is important to consider the potential value of learning to read naturally at an early age. For starters, we know that a technological environment can advance our capacity and expertise. A Texas Instrument calculator transformed every high school math student into a math wizard. My pen affords me an easy opportunity to create a well structured syllogism with two premises and a conclusion. The crutches made available by culture's artifacts and social structure transforms our behavior well beyond what is capable by our bodies alone. The invention of small bikes without pedals affords toddlers the opportunity to learn to balance and navigate on just two wheels and to quickly graduate to a bike with pedals and without training wheels. Our hypothesis is that children will perform beyond their current means, when immersed in written language. As an example, observing a red ball and a green ball with the written labels, green ball and red ball will promote understanding of a relationship between color and object. The labeling highlights the fact that an object can be colored, and that its color is a properly separate from the object itself. Words and language provide a cognitive niche which transform our cognitive capabilities. For the present proposal, we can ask how written language adds value to the preschool child's niche. Value will only result if the child has the neural, perceptual, attentive, and cognitive capacity to acquire written language, with no additional instruction beyond that usually given to spoken language. For children acquiring both speech and reading, the permanence of writing relative to speech might enrich their cognitive niche. The Chimp Shiva was able to overcome her tendency to choose the plate with more food if the plate had a numerical label. Augmenting our child's world with written language might also enhance their functioning and learning in the world. The innovation in the current proposal shifts current research and clinical practice paradigms. The long term objective is to implement an environment for the developing child whereby written text is constantly available, so that learning to read occurs automatically without intention and without direct instruction. To achieve this long term objective, technology must be developed to automatically recognize the meaning inherent in the child's experience and to describe their experience in written language that is appropriate to the child's perceptual, cognitive, and linguistic capability. In one approach, the technology would use two automated methods to recognize and convert the child's experience into written language. The first method uses automated speech recognition to understand the speech that is being spoken. The second uses automated object and scene recognition to understand the actors and action in the scene. These two methods would be used together and their outcomes combined in a Bayesian manner. If accurately implemented, the recognized outcome would be close to what the child is experiencing. Presenting some easy to read written description of this outcome should be meaningful to the child. It is basically linking some symbolic language with meaning. [MUSIC]
