# Bilingual Children with DLD: A Neurodevelopmental Perspective

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR · 2024 · $565,338

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
At the onset of English-dominant schooling, bilinguals with developmental language disorders (DLD) generally
experience a progressive decline in home language use. Yet, theories posit that a bilingual’s two languages
interact in ways that enhance children’s developing language faculty (Hernandez, 2018). To advance new
perspectives on neurodevelopmental disorders of cognitive function and inform clinical approaches for
linguistically-diverse learners, we seek to understand language development in bilingual children with DLD.
Our objective is to uncover how bilingualism impacts language development in children with DLD. Wang et al.
(2021) bridge the Interactive Specialization (Johnson, 2011) and Dual Stream (Poeppel, 2012) frameworks
to conceptualize language development as an interaction between neurocognitive systems competing for
language subfunctions. To examine the effects of bilingualism on DLD, we advance this perspective by linking
it to the view that bilingual experiences influence extrinsic brain-behavior and intrinsic neural interactions
(Hernandez, 2018). We thus hypothesize that added interactivity and competition of two languages will be
positively associated with cortical specialization for language function in bilinguals with DLD.
To test this hypothesis, we focus on syntactic and semantic competences disproportionately affected in DLD.
We use behavioral and functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) neuroimaging measures, testing
Spanish-English bilinguals ages 7-9 (N=400, 60 with DLD), in two languages. Sentence judgment and
narrative comprehension tasks are used to uncover cortical specificity along the dorsal and ventral language
neurocircuits. Aim 1 is to determine language-specific effects of bilingualism on the finetuning of cortical
specialization for language function in DLD. Aim 2 is to uncover the global-system effects of bilingualism on
cortical specialization for language in DLD. To achieve these aims, we examine the relation between children’s
syntactic and semantic competences in each language, the relative balance in dual language experiences, and
their interaction with children’s emerging neural architecture for language. This principled approach will provide
an empirical basis to (1) uncover mechanisms that support the advancement of English proficiency in bilinguals
with DLD; (2) advance theories of DLD through neuro-cognitive evidence on language competences most
affected in DLD; (3) inform intervention by illuminating individual differences in the relations between language
experiences, proficiency, and brain development. This evidence will reveal mechanisms by which language
experiences and proficiency interact with DLD, providing theoretically rich and clinically significant information.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10930122
- **Project number:** 5R01HD109224-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR
- **Principal Investigator:** Ioulia Kovelman
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $565,338
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-09-15 → 2028-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10930122

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10930122, Bilingual Children with DLD: A Neurodevelopmental Perspective (5R01HD109224-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10930122. Licensed CC0.

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