# SES-Related disparities in early language development and child risk for developmental language disorder (Phase 2)

> **NIH NIH R01** · OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $2,299,426

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
The goal of this study is to identify the pathways through which poverty conditions and the early family context
contribute to persistent language disorder at age 9 years among young, low-income children. This renewal
seeks to continue to follow a sample of 311 children ascertained in the first year of life and followed to age 4
years to determine pathways through which the early family context increase susceptibility to developmental
language disorder at school entry. The study is designed to address disparities in the rate of DLD among
young children, with low-income children disproportionately affected (Norbury et al., 2017). The proposed
longitudinal study addresses three specific aims regarding low-income dyads: (1) to model the language
trajectories from ~2 to ~9 years and reading trajectories from ~5 to ~9 years for children from low-income
homes as a function of DLD status at school entry; (2) to test the Family Stress Model's applicability for
specifying the pathways through which the early home context is associated with persistent language disorder
at age 9; and (3) to test the Differential Susceptibility Theory for representing how early environmental
adversities can contribute to risk for persistent language disorder among young children with DLD. We theorize
that low-income children with DLD have heightened risk for persistent language disorder when they experience
significant adversities imposed by poverty, in particular parent psychological distress and disrupted parenting.
In our longitudinal research design, 12 assessment sessions conducted in four windows over a 5-year period
are used to comprehensively measure children's language and reading skills from 5 to 9 years. We couple
these data with robust measurement of children's early family context across five dimensions (economic
hardship, economic pressure, caregiver psychological distress, interrelationship conflict, disrupted parenting)
and children's linguistic trajectories until 54 months. The study aims are addressed using multi-level growth
models (including nonparametric modeling) and multilevel path analyses to examine the interplay among
children's language and reading trajectories, DLD status at 54 months and persistent language disorder to age
9, and the early family context.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10981676
- **Project number:** 2R01DC018009-06
- **Recipient organization:** OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Laura M. Justice
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $2,299,426
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 2020-07-01 → 2027-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10981676

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10981676, SES-Related disparities in early language development and child risk for developmental language disorder (Phase 2) (2R01DC018009-06). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10981676. Licensed CC0.

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