Understanding how family circumstances and early life experiences shape language and thinking skills in children
Official title: Identifying the contributions of gestational and caregiving environments to socioeconomic disparities in child language and cognitive development.
Funded at Endeavor Health Clinical Operations · NIH-11133013 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project looks at how a family's financial situation and a child's experiences during pregnancy and early life might affect their language and thinking development.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Endeavor Health Clinical Operations NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Evanston, United States) |
| Project start | September 13, 2022 |
| Project end | May 31, 2027 |
| Funding year | 2025 |
| Award (this year) | $628,730 |
| NIH project number | 5R01HD109291-04 |
| Project ID | NIH-11133013 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
This project focuses on understanding general developmental patterns in children, particularly those from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, and is not recruiting individual patients for a specific treatment.
✕Less likely to help
Patients seeking direct medical treatment or intervention for a specific condition would not receive immediate benefit from this foundational research.
What this research studies
We know that children from different family backgrounds often show differences in how their language and thinking skills develop, sometimes as early as two years old. This project aims to understand how these differences might be linked to biological processes that happen during pregnancy and early childhood. Researchers will explore how stressful experiences might affect a mother's health during pregnancy and how this could impact a child's brain development. By connecting biological and social factors, we hope to learn more about why these developmental differences occur.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could help us understand the root causes of developmental differences in children, potentially leading to new ways to support children's language and cognitive growth.
How similar studies have gone: While animal studies have shown links between stress during pregnancy and development, human studies specifically connecting adverse gestational environments to socioeconomic disparities in child language and cognition are still emerging.
Where this research is happening
-
Endeavor Health Clinical Operations
Evanston, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Pellerite, Matthew — Endeavor Health Clinical Operations
- Study coordinator: Pellerite, Matthew
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.