Language Development

Late talkers (LT), representing 10-20% of children under 3, demonstrate hallmark syntax and vocabulary deficits similar to preschoolers with developmental language disorder. While effective and early interventions can mitigate the impact of late talking, not enough is known about its neural basis, yet is needed to inform the design of more individualized interventions. This proposed effort uses neuroimaging, along with behavioral methods, with the goal of better understanding the memory-language mechanisms that underlie learning and late talking, while also considering their association to treatment-related changes in LT.

The goal of this study is to investigate whether a shared reading intervention including emotion and mind-related dialogues (SAGA for Toddlers) supports the development of 11 to 36 moth-old-children in early childhood education and care. The main questions it aims to answer are: 1. Does the SAGA model support children's social-emotional development? 2. Does the SAGA model support children's language development? The participating children will attend the intervention at the early childhood education and care. The participating personnel at the early childhood education and care will receive training, implement the intervention, and answer questionnaires. The participating caregivers will attend caregiver-evenings and answers questionnaires.

The objective of the project is to implement the LENA Start Program at the Alief The objective of the project is to implement the LENA Start Program at the Alief Independent School District in Houston, Texas. The purpose of the study is to learn how maternal expectations about language development influence the child's language development. Also, the study will evaluate how much the mothers believe can affect their child's language development. More specifically, the program implementation will serve as a model that other school districts can readily replicate.

The goal of this clinical trial is to test ways to improve early language development among young children of parents with substance use disorder (SUD). Children of parents with SUD are at increased risk for language delays, and early supports may help prevent long-term learning challenges. This study will examine whether adding additional supports to group-based parenting intervention improves child language outcomes compared to the group intervention alone.

The goal of this observational study is to investigate early neural mechanisms underlying the processing of spoken language, specifically the phenomenon of cortical tracking, and to determine whether these mechanisms can serve as early predictors of later language development outcomes in infants, including both typical and atypical trajectories. The main questions it aims to answer are: * How do infants with and without a familial history of language and learning impairments differ in their neural ability to track speech and non-speech auditory stimuli at an early stage of development (around 8 months of age)? * To what extent do early cortical tracking mechanisms predict later language abilities, including both receptive and expressive skills, measured at approximately 18 months of age? Researchers will compare infants with a familial risk for language and learning impairments (FH+) to infants without such risk (FH-) to determine whether differences in early neural processing of auditory stimuli are associated with later language outcomes. Participants will: * undergo a neurophysiological assessment involving non-invasive electroencephalographic (EEG) recording while being exposed to auditory stimuli, including: speech stimuli (pre-recorded simple stories in Italian, presented in infant-directed speech); non-speech stimuli (musical sounds matched for rhythmic and acoustic properties) * take part in a developmental assessment at approximately 8 months of age, including standardized measures of cognitive and early linguistic abilities * be involved in a follow-up assessment approximately 10 months later (around 18 months of age), during which standardized tests will evaluate language comprehension and production abilities * have additional background information collected, including family history of language and learning disorders and socio-demographic characteristics, to better understand potential risk and protective factors The study follows a longitudinal design and uses non-invasive procedures that do not require active responses from the infant.

The investigators are conducting a two-site randomized control trial with the aim of defining the impact of music (M) without or with parent voice (MPV) on very preterm infants' acute and cumulative stress, intranetwork connectivity on term brain MRI, and language and other neurodevelopmental outcomes at two years corrected age. This is based on the hypothesis that infants in MPV arm are expected to experience the greatest benefit compared with infants receiving standard care.

This is a randomized controlled trial to study an oromotor stimulation in combination with a reading curriculum in the NICU among preterm infants using oral muscle exercises, Language Environment Analysis (LENA) recordings, linguistic feedback, and a language curriculum to improve the neonatal inpatient oral feeding and language outcomes for preterm infants.

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if the Talk With Me Baby (TWMB) program improves the home-language environment for at-risk families with children ages two to six months when primary care providers deliver the program during well-child checkups. The main question it aims to answer is: Will the TWMB program increase the time a caregiver talks to their infant? Participants will: 1. Come to at least four well-child checkups 2. Receive the TWMB program from the provider during the checkups 3. Record their conversations with their infant before they receive the program and after they receive the program four times.

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD; also referred to as specific language impairment) experience a significant deficit in language ability that is longstanding and harmful to the children's academic, social, and eventual economic well-being. Word learning is one of the principal weaknesses in these children. This project focuses on the word learning abilities of four- and five-year-old children with DLD. The goal of the project is to build on the investigators' previous work to determine whether, as has been found thus far, special benefits accrue when these children must frequently recall newly introduced words during the course of learning. In this study, the investigators seek to replicate the advantage that repeated retrieval holds over simple exposure to the words appearing in the context of a story book by increasing the degree to which the words are integrated into the story line.

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD; also referred to as specific language impairment) experience a significant deficit in language ability that is longstanding and harmful to the children's academic, social, and eventual economic wellbeing. Word learning is one of the principal weaknesses in these children. This project focuses on the word learning abilities of four- and five-year-old children with DLD. The goal of the project is to determine whether special benefits accrue when these children must frequently recall newly introduced words during the course of learning. In the current study, the investigators compare a "standard" repeated spaced retrieval schedule, with fixed spacing between hearing a word and attempting to retrieve it, to an "adaptive" repeated spaced retrieval schedule in which opportunities to retrieve a given word are tailored to the individual child's current knowledge state. The goal of the study is to determine whether the adaptive schedule can increase children's absolute levels of learning while maintaining the advantages of repeated spaced retrieval.

The goal of this prospective observational multicentric cohort study is to evaluate the clinical prognostic value of the speech tracking score of language development in children with ASD aged from 3 years to 4 years and half at inclusion. Participants will followed during 4 years with an annual visit. During these visits, each participant will be clinically evaluated (scales and tests) and performed an EEG-HR recording. Two groups will be formed, one with children diagnosed with ASD with language delay, and a control group composed of non-ASD children without language delay, matched on age and gender with the ASD group.