# Multi-site Study of Dyslexia

> **NIH NIH R01** · MEDICAL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA · 2024 · $428,921

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
 Children from adverse developmental environments demonstrate varied reading achievement. The
overarching hypothesis of the proposed research is that genetic and neural canalization provide a buffer against
the negative impacts of developmental risks to ensure normative reading and language achievement. Specific
Aim 1 tests the hypothesis that genetic canalization protects against the well-established negative effects of low
socioeconomic status on written and oral language development. We focus on the polygenic and environmental
interactions to characterize canalization, including the extent to which the prevalence of low written and oral
language achievement decreases with (better) polygenic scores for children from environments with high
developmental risk. Here, we will examine: 1) specific social determinants of health where genetic canalization
may be critically important for ensuring normal development; 2) the specificity of canalization to reading and
language relative to executive functions; 3) and the degree to which there are brain structure endophenotypes
for genetic canalization. Specific Aim 1 examines population-level effects, whereas Specific Aim 2 examines the
instantiation of canalization within individuals and tests the hypothesis that a cortical network shown to optimize
task performance can explain reading performance in children with risks for adverse development. For both
aims, large datasets and novel topological analyses are used to provide optimal rigor for these experiments that
will be pre-registered. Specific Aim 3 is to grow an existing data repository of data from neuroimaging studies on
reading disability and development, as well as enhance the functions and our data delivery and sharing resource.
This resource includes the integration of methods to generate data that can be used to replicate previous reading
disability findings. This will include deep learning approaches for identifying neural predictors of reading disability,
with a focus on features that canalize reading development. Together, the theoretically motivated study of large
datasets will generate results to advance our understanding about the development of reading disability,
particularly for children from adverse developmental environments, and further an open science initiative that is
expected to advance reading disability research through data access, replication, and new discovery.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10824602
- **Project number:** 2R01HD069374-11
- **Recipient organization:** MEDICAL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
- **Principal Investigator:** Mark Andrew Eckert
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $428,921
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 2012-05-01 → 2028-11-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10824602

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10824602, Multi-site Study of Dyslexia (2R01HD069374-11). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10824602. Licensed CC0.

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