# SES-Related Disparities in Early Language Development and Child Risk for Developmental Language Disorder

> **NIH NIH R01** · OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $611,415

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
The goal of this study is to identify early risk for developmental language disorder (DLD) among young, low-
income children, and to determine how caregiver and child chronic stress and interaction quality interact to
disrupt language growth among these vulnerable children. 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 long-term objective is to identify pathways through which early family contexts and the conditions of
poverty disrupt early language trajectories among low-income children and contribute to heightened rates of
DLD. The proposed longitudinal study addresses three specific aims regarding low-income dyads: (1) to
identify whether and to what extent caregiver stress affects their young children’s language trajectories and
DLD status at 54 months; (2) to identify the extent to which children’s physiological stress contributes to their
early language trajectories and DLD status at 54 months, and determine whether it is a key mediator of
caregiver stress on these outcomes; and (3) to determine the interplay among caregiver stress, child stress,
and caregiver-child interactions for their effects on children’s early language trajectories and DLD status at 54
months. Study procedures involve ascertainment of 320 low-income mothers and their 6- to 11-month-old
children using medical records from a large urban hospital; eligible dyads will reside in households at or below
200% of the federal poverty level. Measurements are collected thrice annually (one study visit, two in vivo
observations) to comprehensively map family processes and experiences, caregiver-child interaction quality,
caregiver stress and stress physiology, child stress physiology, and children’s linguistic trajectories until 54
months. The initial two study aims are addressed using multi-level growth models, with caregiver and child
stress, respectively, as time-varying predictors. The third study aim uses multilevel path analyses to examine
the interplay among child and caregiver stress, caregiver-child interactions, and children’s language
trajectories and DLD status at 54 months.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9995455
- **Project number:** 5R01DC018009-02
- **Recipient organization:** OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Laura M. Justice
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $611,415
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-09-01 → 2024-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9995455

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9995455, SES-Related Disparities in Early Language Development and Child Risk for Developmental Language Disorder (5R01DC018009-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-21 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9995455. Licensed CC0.

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