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
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.
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Funding
National Institute of Deafness and other Communication Disorders
Grant
NIDSD R01 DC017153Accounts 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.
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Funding
National Institute of Deafness of other Communication Disorders
Grant
NIDCD R01 DC011023Research 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.
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Funding
National Institute of Deafness and other Communication Disorders
Grant
NIDCD R03 DC0083282In 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.
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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.
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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 Lab Resources
Contact Us
Behavioral Health Sciences Building
390 South 1530 East, Suite 1201
Salt Lake City, UT 84112
