Congratulations to Kate Watkins, Dorothy Bishop, and Saloni Krishnan on their brand new MRC grant to identify neural-network abnormalities underlying developmental language disorders.
Developmental language disorders of unknown origin affect about 7% of children. Yet little is known about the underlying neural impairment. In particular, we don't know how the different learning pathways in the brain contribute to language learning impairments. This study will use MRI brain scans to study 160 children aged 10-14 years; 80 with developmental language disorder and 80 without. The researchers will measure the children's ability to use and understand language, their reading ability and their intelligence. They will also look at their ability to learn sequences of sounds and movements and how this learning differs according to task instructions and feedback.