Home › Speech and Language Problems in Children › NCT06898671

Language Outcomes, Mechanisms, and Trajectories in Adults With and Without Developmental Language Disorder

Who can join

Ages 30 to 35 · All sexes · Healthy volunteers welcome

Inclusion Criteria:

* Adults with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and those with typical language (TL) between the ages of 28 and 40 years who participated in the Iowa Longitudinal Study(NIH-DC-19-90 \& P50 DC002746; IRB# 200106051, "Collaboration on Specific Language Impairment".)
* Aged 30-35
* Normal or corrected to normal vision
* Normal hearing

Exclusion Criteria:

* history of brain injury
* history of neural developmental disabilities
* not monolingual

About the study

The investigators' overall objective is to characterize the long-term outcomes of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) in adulthood and to identify specific cognitive mechanisms mediating these outcomes. To address their objectives, the investigators utilize a large, pre-existing dataset and participant pool from one of the most comprehensive examinations of DLD to date: the Iowa Longitudinal Study. The investigators will re-recruit subjects with DLD and with typical language from this historic cohort, who are now adults (30-35 years old). In Aim 1, the investigators will use measures from kindergarten through 10th grade and collect new outcome measures in adulthood to characterize the long-term outcomes of DLD. The investigators predict that adults with DLD will diverge from adults with TL in language skills that are more complex and higher-level language skills that are important for communication in the workplace. Further, the investigators predict a fanning effect: some children with DLD will "catch up" to their TL peers in adulthood, some will show evidence of a decline, and others will show stable trajectories. In Aim 2, the investigators measure real-time competition across written and spoken language using eye-tracking. According to speed of processing accounts adults with DLD may be slower than their TL peers to activate competitors and targets. According to working memory accounts adults with DLD will show sustained competitor activation. Further, the investigators predict that measures related to the dynamics of competition (speed of activation and timing of competitor suppression) will account for variation in language outcomes in adults.

What is being tested

• Eye-Tracking in Visual World Paradigm (behavioral)

Sponsor: University of Iowa · Participants: 400 · Started: Apr 17, 2023

Contact the study team

• Kristi Hendrickson, PhD · Phone: 319-335-8701
• Emily Zrostlik, MA · Phone: 319-467-0769

Official record on ClinicalTrials.gov — NCT06898671

Locations in the U.S.

Conditions

• Speech and Language Problems in Children

From ClinicalTrials.gov, data retrieved Oct 2, 2026. Each study sets its own eligibility; the study team decides who can join.