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Child Language Labs

What we do at the Child Language Labs

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.

Screening Manual and Materials

Redmond Sentence Recall Task

Test of Early Grammatical Impairment

Dollaghan and Campbell Nonword Repetition Task

Infographics and Handouts

Our Projects

Current and past lab projects include: Co-occurrence of Language and Attention Difficulties in Children, Psycholinguistic and Socioemotional Profiling of SLI and ADHD, Contributions of Behavioral and Verbal Liabilities to Social Risk, and The Development of Grammatical Competence in Children with Communication Disorders.

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

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 will continue until 2023, is to address these gaps by conducting parallel longitudinal investigations of language growth and behavioral symptom progression in children with specific language impairment (SLI), attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHA), concomitant ADHD+SLI, and typically development (TD). Group differences in vocabulary, verbal memory, and syntactic growth will be examined over a 5-year period (covering the 7-12 years age span). Changes in individuals' behavioral symptom progressions will be charted across all 4 groups as well. 

Co-occurrence of Language and Attention Difficulties in Children

Funding
National Institute of Deafness of other Communication Disorders
Grant
NIDCD R01 DC011023

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.

PDF Articles (most are available via Marriott Library)

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

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.

PDF Articles (most are available via Marriott Library)

Contributions of Behavioral and Verbal Liabilities to Social Risk

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

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.

 

Lab Members

Principal Investigator/Director
Sean Redmond, PhD, CCC-SLP
sean.redmond@health.utah.edu
801-585-6284

Sean Redmond, PhD, CCC-SLP is the director of the Child Language Laboratories at the University of Utah. Dr. Redmond received his BA from the University of California Santa Barbara and his MA and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Kansas. He has been a member of the University of Utah Communication Sciences and Disorders department since 1998. When he is not working, he enjoys card games, video games, hiking, skiing, camping and snorkeling with his wife Floresha and children Nicholas and Anila.

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Lab Manager
Andrea Ash, PhD
andrea.ash@hsc.utah.edu
801-585-7130

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CHILD LANGUAGE DISORDERS RESOURCES

DLD AND ME

Contact Us

Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders
Behavioral Health Sciences Building
390 South 1530 East, Suite 1201
Salt Lake City, UT 84112

801-585-7130
ChildLanguageLab@hsc.utah.edu