# Rhythmic Grouping in Developmental Language Disorder

> **NIH NIH F31** · UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS DALLAS · 2024 · $46,024

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Developmental language disorder (DLD) is classically identified by a morphosyntactic impairment, but the deficit
profile incorporates other domains such as linguistic prosody and music. To date, the emphasis in the music
domain has been on perceptual processing of rhythmic timing and musical sequences. However, production
may also be implicated, since children with DLD have deficits in hierarchically organized prosody. In the proposed
work, the aim is to use constructs from linguistic prosody to assess whether hierarchical processing drives the
rhythmic deficits observed in the production of language and music. Importantly, language representations may
also differ from music representations, specifically in that language conveys word and sentence content. Another
gap that the present work will address is whether, because of its linguistic content, spoken prosody may be
malleable or learnable in different ways than music. The significance of the planned research is to determine if
a cross-domain rhythmic grouping deficit is present in school-aged children with DLD.
In this planned study, 7- to 8-year-old children (Aim 1) will engage in a series of drumming and spoken language
tasks involving rhythmic grouping abilities predicted to be shared across music and language (Aim 1). An
additional linguistic task will be administered to test the malleability of prosodically vulnerable and stable forms
in a referential as compared to a nonreferential condition (Aim 2). Key to the design of these studies is the
inclusion of multiple levels of grouping structure, allowing for the analysis of hierarchical rhythmic organization
in both music and language. Rhythmic performance will be assessed via both transcription (of beats and pauses
in music, speech sounds and syllables in language) and movement implementation (motion tracking of hands in
music, lips in prosody) metrics. Movement analyses allow for direct measurement of correlates of prosody,
including relative and absolute amplitude and duration of syllables and beats.
The goal of these studies is to determine if children with DLD show deficits in the implementation of rhythmically
grouped, as opposed to ungrouped, elements and to what extent that implementation is influenced by lexical
(referential) assignment. The findings from this project will have the long-term potential to provide new, domain
general avenues for identification and intervention in DLD.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10996980
- **Project number:** 1F31DC021384-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS DALLAS
- **Principal Investigator:** Kathryn Victoria Kreidler
- **Activity code:** F31 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $46,024
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-05-01 → 2026-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10996980

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10996980, Rhythmic Grouping in Developmental Language Disorder (1F31DC021384-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10996980. Licensed CC0.

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