Child Language Lab
The Child Language Lab focuses on studying how children learn language and the problems some children have with developing language skills properly.
About the Child Language Lab
Research conducted at the Child Language Labs is directed at increasing our understanding of language development and developmental language disorders with particular emphasis on the challenges experienced by children with specific language impairment (SLI). Much of the work focuses on issues of assessment and differential diagnosis but another central concern has been untangling the relationships between language disorders, attention deficits and socioemotional difficulties.
Lab Members
Our Projects
The Development Course of Language Impairments, Attention Deficits, and their Co-occurrence
Funding: National Institute of Deafness and other Communication Disorders
Grant: NIDSD R01 DC017153
Project Description
Accounts for why language impairments and attention deficits occur at elevated rates have been largely speculative and limited to data from case control studies, leaving the nature and direction of associations unknown. The purpose of this project, which began in 2018 and ended in 2024, was to address these gaps by conducting parallel longitudinal investigations of language growth and behavioral symptom progression in children with developmental language disorder (DLD), attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), concomitant ADHD+DLD, and typical development (TD). Group differences in vocabulary, verbal memory, and syntactic growth were examined over a 5-year period (covering the 7-12 years age span). Changes in individuals' behavioral symptom progressions were charted across all 4 groups as well.
Co-occurrence of Language and Attention Difficulties in Children
Funding: National Institute of Deafness and other Communication Disorders
Grant: NIDCD R01 DC011023
Project Description
Research suggests an association might exist between children's attention difficulties and their language impairments. In a series of studies, we have been examining this relationship in more detail. We have also been looking into the nature of shared weaknesses between children with attention deficits and children with language impairments in the areas of reading, memory, and social difficulties. Kindergarten to 3rd grade students have been the focus of this research. One of our major projects involved a large scale verbal screening study designed to identity students at risk for language impairments. One product of this project was a locally normed screening protocol that can be used by school personnel in Utah to identity children at risk for language impairments.
Psycholinguistic and Socioemotional Profiling of Specific Language Impairment and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
Funding: National Institute of Deafness and other Communication Disorders
Grant: NIDCD R03 DC0083282
Project Description
In this line of research, we have been investigating the amount of overlap between the behavioral phenotypes associated with SLI and ADHD. A central focus of this work has been a critical consideration of the extent to which conventional assessment tools can adequately differentiate symptoms of SLI from symptoms of ADHD.
Contributions of Behavioral and Verbal Liabilities to Social Risk
Project Description
The consequences of language impairments and behavioral difficulties on children’s social well-being represents a primary focus of the work conducted in the lab.
The Development of Grammatical Competence in Children with Communication Disorders
Project Description
Children with communication disorders often present with long-standing delays in the acquisition of morphological and syntactic competence. In these studies, the explanatory adequacy of different accounts for these difficulties is considered.
Child Language Disorders Resources
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