There is a great need for researchers in communication disorders trained in language impairments. The proposed competing continuation would continue to provide pre-doctoral cross-disciplinary research training as well as preparation for research and teaching careers addressing language impairments from a lifespan perspective. The innovative element in this cycle is the addition of teaching and mentoring in genetics and advanced quantitative modeling methods. The genetics provides training in causal pathways for language impairments and a bridge to behavioral phenotyping which is a legacy strength of the program. The modeling methods provide enhanced rigor in analytics. These areas of expertise appear in academic departments of communication disorders, genetics, cognitive neuroscience, linguistics, human development, psychology, and cognitive science. Four predoctoral trainees are requested for 2-3 years of support per trainee. It is expected that trainees will be drawn primarily from current doctoral students in child language, communication disorders, linguistics, molecular biology/genetics, or cognitive psychology. Program faculty include 13 experienced, productive researchers who direct active research laboratories. These faculty have related interests as well as a track record of collaborative endeavors. Trainees will enroll in a cross-disciplinary curriculum of academic offerings in content courses, research methods and design, and responsible conduct of research. Each trainee will participate in primary and secondary level research experiences. The primary research participation will be a multi-year apprenticeship that takes place in a laboratory headed by one of the program faculty identified as Primary Mentor. A secondary, short-term research experience will be carried out under the direction of a second faculty member identified either as Primary or Secondary Mentor. Faculty and peer mentoring will be recognized as important dimensions of the research training experience. Peer mentoring is encouraged. The climate for scholarship includes a wide variety of scholarly activities, including access to visiting scholars and participation in the ongoing series of seminars and workshops sponsored by the Merrill Advanced Studies Center and the Institute for Life Span Studies. Preparation of research posters, talks, scientific papers and an F31 proposal is expected. Regularly scheduled evaluations will provide feedback to the project directors.
The training addresses a major public health need in the development of scientific expertise to guide the remediation of language impairments as well as in the creation of a cadre of well-trained researchers to train the next generation of researchers and clinicians.
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