Common thinking and attention differences in children with developmental language disorder across English and bilingual backgrounds
Official title: Nonlinguistic cognitive processing commonalities among linguistically diverse learners with developmental language disorder
Funded at University of Minnesota · NIH-11160548 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project looks at whether 5–7 year-old children with developmental language disorder share non-language differences in processing speed, working memory, and attention across English-only and bilingual backgrounds.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | University of Minnesota NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Minneapolis, United States) |
| Project start | September 1, 2021 |
| Project end | August 31, 2026 |
| Funding year | 2025 |
| Award (this year) | $375,806 |
| NIH project number | 5R01DC019613-05 |
| Project ID | NIH-11160548 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal candidates are children aged 5–7 with developmental language disorder or typical development, especially those from English-only, Spanish-English, or Vietnamese-English language backgrounds.
✕Less likely to help
Children outside the 5–7 age range, those without DLD concerns, or speakers of languages not included in the project may not directly benefit from this work.
What this research studies
You or your child would complete simple, non-language tasks that measure processing speed, working memory, and sustained attention in both visual and auditory formats so language experience won't bias results. The team will enroll children aged 5–7 from three language groups (English-only, Spanish-English, and Vietnamese-English), including children with DLD and typically developing peers. Each task will be tested for reliability and clinical usefulness, and statistical clustering will be used to find common cognitive profiles among children with DLD. The goal is to find shared processing patterns that could help identify DLD across different language backgrounds.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could lead to better tools that help clinicians identify developmental language disorder in children who speak different languages.
How similar studies have gone: Previous research links processing speed, working memory, and attention to DLD, but applying nonlinguistic tests across these specific bilingual and monolingual groups is relatively new.
Where this research is happening
-
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Ebert, Kerry Danahy — University of Minnesota
- Study coordinator: Ebert, Kerry Danahy
Related research
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.