SCROLL Research Projects
​Children’s oral language abilities strongly predict literacy and academic achievement. Although there are numerous tools for identifying children at risk for word reading and spelling difficulties, many children with language difficulties continue to fall through the cracks. These children often have significant difficulties with reading comprehension and writing, even if they have good word-reading skills. Within the CLIMB project, we are developing and validating a set of group-administered oral language assessments to efficiently measure language comprehension skills across the primary grades. The assessments we are developing may be used alongside early reading and dyslexia screens. A long-term goal of this work is to help fill gaps in school MTSS Frameworks by providing feasible and accessible tools for identifying children in need of support and monitoring their progress over time.
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We are currently recruiting schools/classrooms to participate in this project! Participating K and first-grade classrooms will complete the 20-30 minute, group-administered language comprehension assessment three times (fall, winter, spring). Participating second grade classrooms will complete one assessment in the fall. If you are a teacher or administrator working with students in Kindergarten, first, or second grades, and would like to learn more about this research please send an email to scroll@mailbox.sc.edu.
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This project is supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (R01DC021177). The Principal Investigators are Dr. Suzanne Adlof at the University of South Carolina and Dr. Alison Hendricks at the University at Buffalo. Collaborating investigators include Dr. Lee Branum-Martin at Georgia State University and Dr. Lisa Fitton at the University of South Carolina. ​
Language and Emotion Regulation in Children
This project is investigating the emotion regulation of children with varying language abilities during learning. Children complete standardized assessments of reading and language as well as computerized learning tasks. Emotion regulation is examined using behavioral and physiological measures and self/parent report. The study is being conducted by Taylor Berrier, who is a pediatric speech-language pathologist and currently a doctoral candidate in our lab. The study is supported by a grant from the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (F31DC021877). We are currently enrolling participants that are in 3rd, 4th, or 5th grades (or are entering or exiting those grades). Participation involves two in-person sessions that each last about an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and a half. Sessions can be scheduled at a location convenient to participants' families. For more information, complete the interest form here or email tbryberrier@sc.edu.
Project WORD
Word Learning in Reading and Language Impairment Subgroups
Rich vocabulary knowledge is essential to strong literacy skills, and children with language and reading disabilities often struggle with learning new words. This longitudinal study follows
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children with developmental language disorder (DLD; also known as “specific language impairment” or SLI), dyslexia, or typical language and reading skills from 2nd to 4th grades to examine the relation between word learning abilities and literacy achievement.
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This project was supported by a grant from the NIH/NIDCD (R01DC017156) and conducted in collaboration with Dr. Dawna Duff at the University of Binghamton. Our 2nd grade participants included children from 40 states in the United States. We are continuing to follow up with these participants when they are in 4th grade.
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A prior study, supported by R03DC013399, involved > 500 2nd grade students in South Carolina who were classified into four subgroups based on their performance on assessments of oral language and word reading skills: DLD, dyslexia, combined DLD+dyslexia, and typical development (TD) and followed longitudinally through 4th grade. Recent key findings from this study include:
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Children with DLD and children with dyslexia exhibited significantly lower performance than their TD peers on school-based assessments of academic progress in reading and math that persisted from 2nd to 4th grade. However, less than 30% of students meeting criteria for the DLD, dyslexia, or DLD+dyslexia groups had received educational support services. Children in the DLD group performed similarly to children in the dyslexia group on both measures across time points, but the children in the dyslexia group were twice as likely to have received educational support services (Duff et al., 2022).
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When provided direct oral instruction in word forms and meanings, children with dyslexia and/or DLD showed significant difficulty learning new words compared to their TD peers. Children with dyslexia had similar starting vocabulary as TD peers, but they showed difficulty on assessments of both phonological and semantic aspects of word learning. Children with DLD had significantly lower starting vocabulary compared to TD peers and peers with DLD, but differed from the TD group only on word learning measures that assessed semantic recall (Adlof et al. 2021). Our ongoing project examines factors that may explain these paradoxical findings and inform vocabulary interventions for both DLD and dyslexia.
South Carolina Early Literacy Screener
The purpose of the South Carolina Early Literacy Screener research program is to validate an app-based literacy screener for kindergarten and first-grade students in South Carolina. The screener embeds computer adaptive assessments within engaging games to efficiently assess a student’s current performance in early literacy skills such as phonemic awareness, decoding, spelling, RAN, and oral language. This project was supported by the SC General Assembly and the SC Department of Education. The research team includes Dr. Lisa Fitton and Dr. Suzanne Adlof from the University of South Carolina, Dr. Hugh Catts from Florida State University, and Learning Ally.
CLASP
Children’s Letter and Sound Processing
This project, supported by an ASH Foundation Clinical Research Grant, examines relations between children’s phonemic awareness (their ability to reflect on and manipulate speech sounds in words) and their orthographic awareness (how speech is represented in print in the English orthographic system). Several of these projects use eyetracking to evaluate the efficiency of children's processing in real time. One study (Baron, Ehrhorn, et al., 2024) compared children with persistent dyslexia, resolving dyslexia, and typical development. Other studies include typically developing 6-7 year olds children (Emily Fisher master's thesis), students with speech sound disorder (Anna Ehrhorn doctoral dissertation), and children with developmental language disorder (DLD).