Official websites use .gov

A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS

A lock ( 🔒 ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Need Help

Hearing loss as a model system to understand neural and environmental predictors of language development from infancy to school entry

Award Number: DP2DC024809
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DEAFNESS AND OTHER COMMUNICATION DISORDERS
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 09/01/2026
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 08/31/2029

Group Awards By:

View Award Description

Hearing loss as a model system to understand neural and environmental predictors of language development from infancy to school entry - PROJECT SUMMARY Two children with identical levels of hearing loss can have completely different spoken language outcomes. One thrives, developing age-appropriate communication skills, while another struggles with persistent language delays. This puzzling variability occurs across many developmental conditions, including autism, learning disabilities, and premature birth, where children with similar challenges follow dramatically different paths. Understanding why some children adapt successfully to early adversity while others struggle remains one of the most important unresolved questions in developmental science. Current research approaches cannot explain this variability because they often study child development in an artificial manner. Most studies bring children into laboratories for brief testing sessions that capture snapshots of development after learning has already occurred, missing the actual process of learning and adaptation as it unfolds throughout childhood. Even longitudinal studies that follow children over many years usually sample development too sparsely to capture the dynamic changes happening during infancy and early childhood when children’s brains and behaviors are most capable of reorganization and change. This project takes a fundamentally different approach by studying adaptation to sensory challenge in real time as it happens in children's everyday lives. Using hearing loss as a natural experiment, I will track how children's brains, behaviors, and environments coordinate during a fundamental period of child language development. We will enroll 120 infants with varying degrees of hearing loss and typical hearing controls, and longitudinally follow them through pre-K school entry. We will measure brain activity in infancy and early childhood using an infant-friendly neuro-imaging technique that permits natural movement and combine this with deep learning speech recognition models to analyze over 58,000 of hours of observation from children's daily lives. This intensive sampling approach—fifteen timepoints across 2.5 years—will reveal why some children successfully overcome hearing loss challenges to develop spoken language while others struggle. The discoveries in this proposal have implications far beyond hearing loss. By understanding the fundamental principles that enable some children to thrive when facing sensory challenges like hearing loss, we can identify what drives developmental resilience across many conditions. This knowledge could transform how we identify children at risk of developmental delay and design interventions during the developmental windows when adaptation to sensory challenge is most possible. The project exemplifies the paradigm-shifting research the New Innovator Program supports: tackling methodological challenges that traditional funding mechanisms cannot support, combining cutting-edge computational approaches with neuro-imaging methods to reveal basic mechanisms of adaptation that could reshape our understanding of resilience in human development.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2027 ( Subtotal = $0 )
2027	2026	THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY	450 JANE STANFORD WAY	STANFORD	CA	94305	SANTA CLARA	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	000	1	10/20/2026	NEW	$0
														Subtotal = $0

Issue Date FY: 2026 ( Subtotal = $2,194,500 )
2026	2026	THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY	450 JANE STANFORD WAY	STANFORD	CA	94305	SANTA CLARA	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	000	1	8/18/2026	NEW	$2,194,500
														Subtotal = $2,194,500

Grand Total All Awards = $2,194,500

Top

All Categories

About

Search

Reports

Data Submission

Award Information

Hearing loss as a model system to understand neural and environmental predictors of language development from infancy to school entry

Award Number: DP2DC024809

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DEAFNESS AND OTHER COMMUNICATION DISORDERS

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 09/01/2026

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 08/31/2029

Federal Websites

Department of Health & Human Services

HHS Operating Divisions

HHS Staff Divisions

Download A Document Viewer