Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Center for Autism Services, Science and Innovation (CASSITM) has been awarded a $4 million grant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. The five-year study examines how the brain supports spoken language development in toddlers with and without autism.
The study is led by Dr. Rachel Reetzke, CCC-SLP, director of CASSI’s Brain and Behavioral Development Lab. Collaborators on the project include CASSI’s founder and executive director, Dr. Rebecca Landa; Dr. Stewart Mostofsky, who leads Kennedy Krieger’s Center for Neurodevelopmental and Imaging Research; and Dr. Adam Eggebrecht, who is based at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
In this study, toddlers will wear an innovative, child-friendly cap while watching and listening to short movie clips. The cap uses safe, near-infrared light to create images of brain activity. Researchers will compare the brain activity of toddlers with and without autism, looking at the part of the brain that is related to speech processing. Then, they’ll track each child’s language development over time using caregiver reports, standardized language assessments, and observations of caregiver-child interactions. The goal is to learn whether early differences in how the brain processes speech can predict later spoken language outcomes.