Breakthrough Research: Dr. Gaelle Doucet Secures Prestigious NIH Funding to Transform Understanding of Developmental Language Disorder
Approximately one in 14 children is estimated to have a developmental language disorder (DLD; NIH.org). For these millions of children, everyday communication presents profound challenges that persist into adulthood. Now, groundbreaking research at the Institute for Human Neuroscience aims to reveal the neurological underpinnings of these struggles. Dr. Gaelle Doucet has been awarded a prestigious R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate the brain mechanisms behind DLD, potentially transforming how we diagnose and treat this common yet often overlooked condition.
Dr. Doucet’s research project is titled ”Brain structural and functional abnormalities in the executive function network in children with developmental language disorder.”
“Receiving this R01 grant will allow us to understand whether some of the language impairments identified in children with DLD are actually due to alterations in other major cognitive domains, such as in executive function also known to be impaired in this population. By scanning their brain using an MRI machine, we hope that we will be able to identify the brain abnormalities that contribute to language impairments,” says Dr. Doucet.
The Challenge
Developmental language disorder is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders, with an estimated prevalence of 7-8%, which is nearly seven times more common than autism spectrum disorder (McGregor, 2020). While people with DLD can have significant difficulty learning, understanding, and using spoken language, they can also show impairments in other advanced thinking skills or higher-order cognitive domains (Thomas and Vissers, 2019; McGregor, et al., 2023).
Figure 1. An infographic from
the website DLDandMe.org,
explaining aspects of
developmental language
disorder. Dr. Karla McGregor,
a co-investigator on the grant,
is a founding member
and the current Chair of
DLDandMe.org.
Digging a Little Deeper
An example of a higher-order cognitive domain is executive function, a major category among all cognitive skills that act as the traffic controller of the brain. Executive function is defined as a set of separate cognitive skills, including working memory (updating and monitoring of new information), interference control (such as inhibition), and cognitive flexibility (ability to shift between tasks or mental sets). Overall, these skills play a direct role in how our brains function and how we live daily by influencing processes such as planning, focus, memory, and self-monitoring.
One particular function within the executive function that DLD has shown to be impaired in is working memory. This unique type of memory allows one to hold and manipulate information actively while performing a task, and is crucial for planning, reasoning, and problem solving (Larson and Ellis Weismer, 2022).
The Research Approach
Dr. Doucet seeks to understand the brain’s mechanisms related to working memory and how they relate to language impairments in children with DLD. Specifically, she aims to provide, for the first time, a comprehensive view of brain structural, functional, neurochemical, and myelination properties in the working memory network in this population and quantify the level of differences.
About the Researchers
Dr. Doucet is the director of the Brain Architecture, Imaging, and Cognition Laboratory at the Institute for Human Neuroscience. This is her first R01 award as the principal investigator. The award was granted in April by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders under the National Institutes of Health.
For this research project, Dr. Doucet is partnering with Dr. Karla McGregor and Dr. Tony Wilson. Dr. McGregor, a speech-language pathologist, is the director of the Word Learning Laboratory in the Center for Childhood Deafness, Learning, and Language at Boys Town National Research Hospital. She has conducted research on DLD for over 30 years. Dr. Wilson is the director of the Dynamic Imaging of Cognition and Neuromodulation (DICoN) Laboratory at the Institute for Human Neuroscience and will serve as the expert in typical childhood development.
Dr. Gaelle Doucet, a researcher at the Institute for Human Neuroscience and Director of the Brain Architecture, Imaging, and Cognition Laboratory.
Dr. Karla McGregor, a researcher at the Center for Childhood Deafness, Learning, and Language and Director of the Word Learning Laboratory.
Dr. Tony Wilson, a researcher and the Director of the Institute for Human Neuroscience and the Director of the Dynamic Imaging of Cognition and Neuromodulation Laboratory.
Next Steps
This five-year grant will allow Dr. Doucet and her team to conduct comprehensive brain imaging studies with both DLD-affected and typically developing children. Beyond mapping differences, this work lays crucial groundwork for the development of targeted interventions that address the root neurological causes of language impairments in DLD. The findings may also have broader implications for understanding other developmental disorders that involve working memory challenges. For updates on this groundbreaking research or to learn about participation opportunities, visit https://www.instituteforhumanneuroscience.org/participate.
Sources
1. McGregor, K. K. (2020). How we fail children with developmental language disorder. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 51(4), 981–992. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_LSHSS-20-00003
2. Tomas, E., & Vissers, C. (2019). Behind the scenes of developmental language disorder: Time to call neuropsychology back on stage. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 12, 517. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00517
3. McGregor, K. K., Ohlmann, N., Eden, N., Arbisi-Kelm, T., & Young, A. (2023). Abilities and disabilities among children with developmental language disorder. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 54(3), 927–951. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_LSHSS-22-00070
4. Li, Q., Li, Y., Zheng, J., Yan, X., Huang, J., Xu, Y., Zeng, X., Shen, T., Xing, X., Chen, Q., & Yang, W. (2023). Prevalence and trends of developmental disabilities among US children and adolescents aged 3 to 17 years, 2018–2021. Scientific Reports 13, 17254. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-44472-1
5. Larson, C., & Ellis Weismer, S. (2022). Working memory performance in children with developmental language disorder: The role of domain. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research: JSLHR, 65(5), 1906–1920. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-21-00420