# Word Problems, Language, & Comorbid Learning Disabilities

> **NIH NIH P20** · VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $282,309

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
COVID-19 school closures have resulted in remote learning conditions for sustained periods over the past
year. This is projected to exact a devastating toll on the learning of this country’s school-age population, and
the magnitude of that learning loss is expected to be uneven. The target population in the Vanderbilt
Learning Disabilities Innovation Hub is children with comorbid reading & math learning disabilities (LDs).
This is likely to be among the worst affected subgroups due to the differential severity of these children’s
academic deficits. Further increasing vulnerability is the racial and ethnic diversity of the Hub Project study’
sample. Meanwhile, the challenges created by COVID-19’s school closures provide this LD Hub with unique
scientific opportunities for deepening insights on the Hub Project’s Specific Aim. The first unique opportunity
is the alternating delivery of remote and in-person schooling, which represents a naturally occurring
alternating condition design, which permits innovative within-cohort contrasts. The second opportunity is the
availability of separate pre- and during-pandemic Hub study cohorts, permitting innovative between-cohort
contrasts. The third unique scientific opportunity is the close communications with families the Hub
maintains during COVID’s remote assessments and interventions, which permits unusual access for
conducting meaningful parent interviews. The proposed supplement takes advantage of these scientific
opportunities to deepen insight on the Hub Project’s Specific Aim, which centers on the processes involved
in reciprocal learning across reading & math in this population. This Supplement’s analyses focus on three
issues: (1) how reciprocity of learning between reading & math for children with comorbid reading & math
LDs differs as a function of pandemic status (pre-pandemic, which was in-person schooling, vs. pandemic,
which is a mix of remote and in-person schooling) and how scaffolding, designed to map theoretical
commonalities between reading & math, moderates this effect; (2) how fidelity in delivering theoretically
guided scaffolding differs as a function of delivery mode (remote vs. in-person during the pandemic); and (3)
how parent views on children’s reading & math development, connections between reading & development,
and teaching quality differ as a function of delivery mode (remote vs. in-person during the pandemic) and
how theoretically guided scaffolding moderates parent views. The hope is that these insights will not only
deepen understanding about comorbid reading & math LDs but also guide researchers and educators on
how to conduct remote schooling in productive ways and improve academic progress during remote
schooling for vulnerable populations.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10379744
- **Project number:** 3P20HD075443-08S1
- **Recipient organization:** VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Lynn S Fuchs
- **Activity code:** P20 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $282,309
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2021-04-01 → 2022-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10379744

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10379744, Word Problems, Language, & Comorbid Learning Disabilities (3P20HD075443-08S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10379744. Licensed CC0.

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