UH-led research team seeks to improve language learning in bilingual children

Anny Castilla-Earls awarded $3.27M by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders

2023-04-26

(Press-News.org) A University of Houston professor and her research team are seeking to improve the lives and education of bilingual children across the country through their research on developmental language disorder.

Anny Castilla-Earls, professor of communication sciences and disorders, was awarded $3.27 million for five years by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders to investigate the relationship between a child’s proficiency in English or Spanish and the language in which they receive treatment for developmental language disorder. Developmental language disorder, or DLD, is a communication disorder that interferes with a person’s learning, understanding and use of a language, and the cause cannot be attributed to limited language exposure, autism, intellectual disability, hearing impairment, or other external factors.

“This is often an underserved population of children because they are bilingual,” said Castilla-Earls, a faculty member of the UH College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. “There are many difficulties in identifying these children. There are only a few therapy programs for them. And if there are therapies for them, they tend to be in one language only.”

Castilla-Earls, along with her co-principal investigator and University of Delaware communication sciences and disorders professor Amanda Owen Van Horne, point out that a key challenge in serving bilingual children with developmental language disorders is the mismatch between the languages they speak and the availability of speech language pathologists who can provide services in those languages.

Their hypothesis is simple: The child’s strongest language should be the language of treatment. If the strongest language is treated, practitioners will see gains in both languages. If this hypothesis turns out to be correct, it will provide guidance about best practices for treating bilingual children with a language disorder.

The team will conduct a randomized clinical trial enrolling 120 children with developmental language disorder between 4-6 years old from Houston-area public schools. It would be offered as a supplementary therapy in addition to the services the children receive in school.

The study will focus on children who have trouble building complex syntax sentences. These are sentences such as, “The ice melts if it gets warm,” or “If you finish your work, sit on the rug.”

“Because these types of complex sentences exist in both Spanish and English, we can treat children in Spanish and we will see some gains in English, and vice versa,” said Castilla-Earls. “But we believe the strongest language of the child would be the best language to see those effects.”

They will test children using two grammatical structures. Children will receive one of three possible treatments: English only, Spanish only or bilingual (50% English, 50% Spanish) for one grammatical structure for nine weeks. Following treatment, outcomes will be assessed for both grammatical structures in both languages. Then the second grammatical structure will be treated for nine weeks, and outcomes will again be assessed for both grammatical structures for both languages.

Vast Potential Impact on Bilingual U.S. Children

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 8.5 million children in the U.S. speak Spanish at home. Developmental language disorder is one of the most common developmental disorders, affecting approximately 1 in fourteen children in kindergarten. Its impacts can persist through adulthood.

“Through this study, we will have evidence to examine what is the best approach for treatment of children with developmental language disorder,” said Castilla-Earls. "I look forward to the potential ramifications of our work and how it can truly support bilingual kids and their learning of language.”

She thanks the UH Division of Research’s Grants to Enhance and Advance Research program for the award of $39,000 three years ago that made it possible to collect pilot data to apply and be awarded a prestigious R01 grant from the NIH.

Research reported in this release was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders of the NIH under Award Number R01DC020183. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

END

[Attachments] See images for this press release:

UH-led research team seeks to improve language learning in bilingual children 2

UH-led research team seeks to improve language learning in bilingual children 3

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Astronomers image for the first time a black hole expelling a powerful jet

2023-04-26

An international team of scientists led by Dr. LU Rusen from the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (SHAO) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has used new millimeter-wavelength observations to produce an image that shows, for the first time, both the ring-like accretion structure around a black hole, where matter falls into the black hole, and the black hole's associated powerful relativistic jet. The source of the images was the central black hole of the prominent radio galaxy Messier 87. The study was published in Nature on April 26. The image underlines for the first time the connection between the accretion flow near the central supermassive black hole and the origin ...

LincRNA paints a target on diseased tissues

2023-04-26

Our genetic code includes over 15,000 specific sections that can be made into molecules called lincRNAs. Some of these sections can occur in coiled-up sections of our genome called TADs. LincRNAs derived from TADs appear to act as markers indicating the specific kind of tissue they are within. When something is wrong in these tissues, the markers could help with targeted medical interventions. The team that discovered this novel feature has outlined a way to apply this idea to different diseases and demonstrated it with a heart disease known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Diseases can affect very specific ...

Prehistoric poo reveals ‘waves’ of extinction in Colombia

2023-04-26

Fungal spores found in dung have revealed that large animals went extinct in two “waves” in the Colombian Andes. Spores of coprophilous fungi pass through the guts of megafauna (animals over 45kg) as part of their life cycle, so the presence of the spores in sediment samples shows large animals lived in a certain place and time. The study, by the University of Exeter, found that large animals became locally extinct at Pantano de Monquentiva about 23,000 years ago, and again about 11,000 years ago – with major impacts on ecosystems. The study used ...

Social vulnerability has direct link to suicide risk, study shows

2023-04-26

More than 45,000 Americans died by suicide in 2020, a 30% increase over 2000, making it the 12th leading cause of death in the U.S. Studies have shown that the social and environmental factors where people live, like exposure to violence and crime, access to quality health care, food insecurity, job opportunities, and air pollution, are connected to suicide rates. Now, a new research study from the University of Chicago provides more statistical evidence that social determinants of health are tightly linked to suicide risk. The study, published ...

Gun deaths more likely in small towns than major cities

2023-04-26

Contrary to popular belief, firearm deaths in the U.S. are statistically more likely in small towns, not major cities, according to new research. Across the country, gun suicides are more common than gun homicides, and gun suicides are largely responsible for an increase in gun deaths over the past few decades, the study also finds. The analysis of two decades of U.S. mortality data was conducted by researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and the University of California, Davis, and appears in the journal JAMA Surgery. “Our study has found that the divide in total intentional ...

Safety, immunogenicity, efficacy of Novavax COVID-19 vaccine in adolescents

2023-04-26

About The Study: The findings of this randomized clinical trial including 2,200 adolescents indicate that the NVX-CoV2373 (Novavax, Inc.) COVID-19 vaccine is safe, immunogenic, and efficacious in preventing COVID-19, including the predominant Delta variant, in adolescents. Authors: German Anez, M.D., of Novavax, Inc., in Gaithersburg, Maryland, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.9135) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions ...

Exposure to neighborhood racialized economic segregation and reinjury and violence perpetration among survivors of violent injuries

2023-04-26

About The Study: This study found that living in a more economically deprived and socially marginalized area was associated with increased risk of using violence against others. The finding suggests that interventions may need to include investments in neighborhoods with the highest levels of violence to help reduce downstream transmission of violence. Authors: Elizabeth C. Pino, Ph.D., of the Boston University School of Medicine, is the corresponding author. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.8404) Editor’s ...

How the Amazon rainforest is likely to cope with the effect of future drought

2023-04-26

Note to journaliststs. There are two linked press releases below: the first describes the scientific findings. The second describes the challenges of working in the Amazon forest. How the Amazon rainforest is likely to cope with the effect of future drought New study identifies regions in the rainforest most at risk from drier conditions Drought will reduce the rainforest’s ability to remove carbon from the environment A major collaboration involving 80 scientists from Europe and South America has identified the regions of the Amazon rainforest where trees are most likely to face the greatest risk from drier ...

Neuronal activity shapes the development of astrocytes

2023-04-26

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have unraveled the processes that give astrocytes, the most abundant glial cell in the brain, their special bushy shape, which is fundamental for brain function. They report in the journal Nature that neuronal activity is necessary and sufficient for astrocytes to develop their complex shape, and interrupting this developmental process results in disrupted brain function. “Astrocytes play diverse roles that are vital for proper brain function,” said first author Yi-Ting Cheng, a graduate student in Dr. Benjamin Deneen’s lab at Baylor. “For instance, they support the activity of other essential brain cells, ...

New chemistry can extract virgin-grade materials from wind turbine blades in one process

2023-04-26

The new chemical process is not limited to wind turbine blades but works on many different so-called fibre-reinforced epoxy composites, including some materials that are reinforced with especially costly carbon fibres. Thus, the process can contribute to establishing a potential circular economy in the wind turbine, aerospace, automotive and space industries, where these reinforced composites, due to their light weight and long durability, are used for load-bearing structures. Being designed to last, the durability of the blades poses an ...