# Dual Language Development in Young Children with ASD

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON · 2024 · $569,046

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
For the millions of bilingual parents around the world, and in the US specifically, one of the most pressing
questions in the face of the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnosis is how to reconcile it with bilingualism.
The choice is most frequently framed in terms of whether to maintain the home language or to switch to the
community language (English in the US). Existing studies on bilingual children with ASD take the approach of
comparing them to monolingual children with ASD in order to establish whether bilingualism carries additional
risks to the development of an autistic child10,22,28,62,110,116,121,122,126,131,141,143,152. However, comparisons between
bilinguals and monolinguals can be deeply biased, and equally importantly, such a group-comparison approach
says little about the best way to support dual language development in young bilingual children with autism. In
this proposal we ask: What are the patterns of dual-language development in young bilingual children
with ASD, and how does dual-language input shape their language outcomes? An especially significant
and innovative aspect of this proposal is its combination of tightly-controlled experimental tasks testing early
English and Spanish skills via highly sensitive eye-gaze measures and ecologically-valid measures of
language input, obtained via parent-child interactions. Our participants are young children (18-36 months)
exposed to Spanish in the home, with and without ASD. We will provide the diagnosis of ASD in-lab, using the
family’s preferred language, thus shortening the evaluation timeline, and yielding an immediate benefit to
Hispanic and Latine families that are drastically underserved, both in terms of service access and in terms of
research participation. Aim 1 is to examine the development of Spanish and English skills in young bilingual
children with and without ASD, defining trajectories of dual-language development. Aim 2 is to examine whether
dual-language input can be optimized in young bilingual children with and without ASD. Studies under this Aim
will offer first evidence for the need to separate dual-language input into distinct streams to optimize language
outcomes in bilingual children with ASD. Aim 3 is to characterize input parameters in the linguistic environment
of bilingual children with and without ASD over time, and to test the effects of dual-language exposure on
language outcomes. This will be the first prospective longitudinal study to examine how families adapt their
language practices when they receive a diagnosis of ASD and to investigate how dual-language input shapes
language outcomes in bilingual children with and without ASD. Proposed studies are highly innovative in their
focus on very young children, use of dynamic processing measures that can capture language skills in children
with varying levels of ability, and longitudinal approach. Recruitment of a neurotypical group that is distribution-
matched to children ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10894786
- **Project number:** 5R01DC021150-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
- **Principal Investigator:** Margarita Kaushanskaya
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $569,046
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-08-01 → 2028-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10894786

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10894786, Dual Language Development in Young Children with ASD (5R01DC021150-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10894786. Licensed CC0.

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