# Underlying Psycholinguistic Skills in Late Talkers: Distinct Profiles and Differences from Typically Developing Children

> **NIH NIH F31** · NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $41,182

## Abstract

Project Summary
Delayed language development is one of parents' most common concerns expressed during well-child visits at
24 months of age. This high rate of concern is reflected in research findings that approximately 15% of toddlers
experience delayed expressive language development (and are labeled as “late talkers”). This group of
children has highly variable long-term outcomes, with some children experiencing persistent language
problems, and others developing typical language skills. While effective early interventions exist, a critical
barrier to improving the health and long-term outcomes of these children is a lack of reliable diagnostic
predictors of long-term outcomes. Current diagnostic assessments cannot differentiate between those children
who will spontaneously recover and those who need language intervention services. Without improved
predictors, pediatricians and clinicians cannot allocate limited intervention resources to those children most in
need. Typical diagnostic measures used both clinically and in research include behavioral assessments of
children's broad expressive and receptive language skills. However, these gross measures of linguistic
development alone have poor predictive validity. This project proposes to use more precise, fine-grained
measures of two psycholinguistic skills in order to characterize language profiles in late talkers: phonological
development, and semantic sensitivity. This will be accomplished by utilizing a multi-method, multi-informant
approach. Children's sensitivity to semantic associations will be measured receptively using an intermodal
preferential looking paradigm (IPLP) eye tracking task (Aim 1a). Semantic development will also be assessed
through modeling the structure of children's expressive vocabulary using network analysis of their early,
parent-reported vocabulary (Aim 1b). Children's receptive phonological development will be measured using a
second IPLP eye tracking task to assess their sensitivity to mispronunciation in early-acquired words (Aim 2a).
Additionally, the phonological structure of children's early expressive vocabulary will be modeled using network
analytic techniques (Aim 2b). Finally, an exploratory aim will use Latent Profile Analysis to test the extent to
which there are distinct profiles of performance across these four tasks within late talkers (Aim 3).
Understanding how these two psycholinguistic skills are impacted in late talkers, and the extent to which
distinct profiles of skills exists in these children, will have a positive translational impact by elucidating areas for
intervention in this population and aiding in determining which children are most likely in need of intervention
services.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9844412
- **Project number:** 5F31DC017631-02
- **Recipient organization:** NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Philip Robert Curtis
- **Activity code:** F31 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $41,182
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-12-01 → 2020-11-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9844412

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9844412, Underlying Psycholinguistic Skills in Late Talkers: Distinct Profiles and Differences from Typically Developing Children (5F31DC017631-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9844412. Licensed CC0.

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