Michelle Schlandant
University of Miami, FL·Education Research
Some toddlers start talking later than their peers. These "late talkers" are at risk of lasting language delays and later struggles in school.
- Fields
Education Research
Psychology
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
late talkers
language delay
dual language learners
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Explore how Spanish- and Haitian Creole-speaking caregivers and early care and education teachers recognize typical versus delayed language development in dual language learners, and what shapes their decisions to seek help, through native-language interviews.
- Identify barriers and facilitators that caregivers and teachers face in accessing early support services for dual language learner late talkers, analyzing interviews with community partners using the Framework Method.
- Identify 30 dual language learner late talkers across 75 early care and education centers using culturally and linguistically appropriate screening, carried out with cultural brokers from community partner organizations.
More about the research
The risk is higher for children growing up with two languages, called dual language learners, because their delays may be missed or mistaken for normal second-language learning. Cultural and language barriers can also keep families from getting help. Very little is known about how Spanish-speaking and Haitian Creole-speaking families and teachers recognize late talking. Validated screening tools are still lacking for Haitian Creole.
Why it matters
Hispanic and Haitian toddlers learning two languages may be misidentified or miss early help for language delays. Findings from this project could guide culturally and linguistically appropriate screening tools and referral pathways, especially for Haitian Creole-speaking communities that lack validated measures. Earlier support could help these children avoid lasting language and academic difficulties.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
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University of Maryland, MD·Psychology
Identify the syntactic, vocabulary and spelling features that distinguish the writing of students with developmental language disorder (DLD) from typical peers across grades 6–11, by annotating the PERSUADE essay corpus utterance by utterance.
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University of Kansas, KS·Psychology
Test whether Talk With Me Baby, language coaching delivered during well-child visits, improves the home language environment and child language by age 2, using a 16-clinic randomized trial with 400 families, LENA recordings, home videos, and standardized tests.
Julia Rosenberg
Yale University, CT·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Determine whether state-level expansions of health insurance eligibility are associated with changes in children's insurance enrollment and preventive care, using repeated National Survey of Children's Health data.
The school
University of Miami: 30 labs on PI Pages, $559M a year on research, 297 research doctorates a year.
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