# Examining neural mechanisms of developmental dyslexia from infancy to school-age (supplement)

> **NIH NIH R01** · BOSTON CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL · 2021 · $250,001

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
The closure of educational institutions worldwide due to the COVID-19 pandemic is estimated to have affected
over 90% of the world's students. Pandemics and resulting school closures are often studied from only a public
health perspective, leaving questions about the academic implications of school closures. The COVID-19-related
school closures have been proposed to be viewed through the lens of seasonal learning loss observed during
the summer months, but it is unclear whether these two types of school closures lead to similar learning losses.
Children from lower socio-economic (SES) backgrounds as well as children with learning disabilities, who both
show larger declines than their peers during the summer, may be most affected by COVID-19 school closures.
The goal of this supplement is to continue data collection for the existing parent grant in order to collect crucial
data essential for the longitudinal growth curve and developmental trajectory analyses.Data collection has been
significantly delayed due to COVID-19 closures and restrictions but will resume on April 1st 2021. We aim to
quantify the degree of learning loss in children with and without a familial risk for developmental dyslexia using
in-person behavioral testing and a remote assessment protocol recently developed in our lab. The existing
longitudinal design of this project provides a unique opportunity to compare language and (pre-)reading skills
across several timepoints prior to COVID-19 school closures. The literacture on school closure related learning
loss show that learning loss due to summer and natural disaster related closures is compounded by poverty and
home literacy environment and practices (HLEP). HLEP has been shown to be directly related to (pre-)reading
skills such as decoding abilities and phonological sensitivity and evidence indicates an association between
HLEP and literacy attainment. When controlling for SES and parent education, children from richer HLEP
backgrounds outperform children from poorer ones on vocabulary, oral listening comprehension, and reading
skills. The implementation of eWork policies during COVID-19 may allow caregivers to contribute more to their
children's educational attainment – but they also have to juggle work with homeschooling, childcare, and other
stressors, which may lead to reduced literacy activities. In this supplement, we will further analyze a data set
already obtained from families enrolled in the parent grant as well as a global community sample of 1,400 families
that examines how HLEP of families has changed since the pandemic. It is of great importance to determine
how family and SES factors (e.g., changes in household income, number of caregivers in the home, number of
eWork hours) influence HLEP during COVID-19 restrictions and after these restrictions are lifted. By analyzing
language and (pre-)reading skills longitudinally before and after COVID-19 school closures, and linking these to
HLEP and SES...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10378886
- **Project number:** 3R01HD065762-10S1
- **Recipient organization:** BOSTON CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** Nadine Gaab
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $250,001
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2021-08-16 → 2023-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10378886

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10378886, Examining neural mechanisms of developmental dyslexia from infancy to school-age (supplement) (3R01HD065762-10S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10378886. Licensed CC0.

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