Key Dates

Related Announcements

• October 20, 2023 - NIDCD Low Risk Clinical Trials in Communication Disorders (R01 Clinical Trial Required). See NOFO PAR-24-051.
• May 5, 2020 - Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Required). See NOFO PA-20-183.
• May 5, 2020 - Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Basic Experimental Studies with Humans Required). See NOFO PA-20-184.
• May 5, 2020 - NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed). See NOFO PA-20-185.

Issued by

National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

Purpose

The purpose of this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) is to encourage applications for R01 research projects to: (1) advance our understanding of why children with various conditions and/or risk factors are late to talk, (2) differentiate developmental trajectories that lead to better outcomes, and (3) evaluate the effectiveness of clinical approaches to improve outcomes. The ultimate goal is to provide parents, caregivers, and professionals with the information they need to help late talking children grow and thrive. 

Background

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Tackling Acquisition of Language in Kids (TALK) initiative seeks to support activities to better understand early language learning and delay. Late talking, also known as late language emergence, is diagnosed when a child, usually over the age of 18 months, is not meeting expressive language milestones. Approximately 10% to 20% of children receive this diagnosis. Children may be at higher risk for late talking for a variety of reasons including, but not limited to, premature birth, exposure to maltreatment or trauma, and intellectual and developmental disorders; and yet other children present as late talkers for no other known reason and with no other symptoms. Outcomes for late talking children are variable and the unique predictors and developmental sequelae are yet unknown. Understanding developmental trajectories and effectively supporting positive outcomes is even more complex in culturally and linguistically diverse children. Further research is needed to enhance our understanding of the full range of language development from infancy through childhood and adolescence across the diverse array of children who exhibit signs of late talking. There is a critical need to build a more robust knowledge base for this unique population to better inform parents, caregivers, professionals, and other partners regarding the nature, extent, and longitudinal, developmental course of late talking children. It also is critically important to develop new and more effective ways of evaluating and supporting communication success across this broad and diverse array of children.

Research Objectives

This NOSI encourages applications that address the objectives of: (1) acquiring and analyzing the data necessary to understand longitudinal development in late talking children; (2) developing, evaluating, disseminating, and implementing state-of-the-science information and evidence-based practices to effectively guide parents, caregivers, and professionals in supporting the success of late talking children; (3) creating, adapting, or applying novel approaches to the study of late talkers to develop new and more effective ways of understanding and supporting late talking children in research and practice settings.

This NOSI encourages applications that address the objectives of TALK, including but not limited to studies that:

• Evaluate scalable methods for accurately screening for late talking in the general population that includes children from various cultural and linguistic groups
• Compare different methods of identifying late talking
• Identify optimal measures for differentiating developmental trajectories in late talking children across a variety of conditions/risk factors and in various cultural and linguistic groups
• Identify outcome measures for late talking that are meaningful to invested parties (e.g., caregivers, professionals)
• Develop and evaluate interventions (e.g., programs, products, policies) to improve outcomes for late talking children
• Adapt and test novel or emerging approaches to more accurately identify late talkers and/or more accurately discern developmental trajectories associated with different outcomes
• Translate promising approaches from research studies into clinical tools that can be used in real world settings

Applications Not Responsive to this NOSI:

• Applications that do not address late talking

This NOSI focuses on R01 research projects. Exploratory/developmental R21 projects leveraging extant data to understand developmental trajectories of late talking children should see TALK PAR-24-045. Exploratory/developmental R21 projects investigating the information and practice needs relevant to late talking children should see TALK PAR-24-046.

Application and Submission Information

This notice applies to due dates on or after January 5, 2024 and subsequent receipt dates through November 6, 2026. 

Submit applications for this initiative using one of the following notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) or any reissues of these announcements through the expiration date of this notice.

• PA-20-185 – NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
• PA-20-184 – Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Basic Experimental Studies with Humans Required)
• PA-20-183 – Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Required)
• PAR-24-051 – NIDCD Low Risk Clinical Trials in Communication Disorders (R01 Clinical Trial Required)

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide and the notice of funding opportunity used for submission must be followed, with the following additions:

• For funding consideration, applicants must include “NOT-DC-24-010” (without quotation marks) in the Agency Routing Identifier field (box 4B) of the SF424 R&R form. Applications without this information in box 4B will not be considered for this initiative.

Applications nonresponsive to terms of this NOSI will not be considered for the NOSI initiative.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to the contacts in Section VII of the listed notice of funding opportunity with the following additions/substitutions:

Scientific/Research Contact(s)

Holly L. Storkel, Ph.D.
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Telephone: (301) 496-5061 
Email: holly.storkel@nih.gov

Virginia Salo, PhD
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
Telephone: 301-402-3682
Email: virginia.salo@nih.gov

Peer Review Contact(s)

Examine your eRA Commons account for review assignment and contact information (information appears two weeks after the submission due date).

Financial/Grants Management Contact(s)

Christopher Myers
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Telephone: 301-402-0909
Email: myersc@mail.nih.gov

Margaret Young
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
Telephone: 301-642-4552
Email: margaret.young@nih.gov