Developmental language disorder - prevention and intervention
Developmental language disorder (DLD) is a public health concern affecting millions of children across Europe. Still, the basis for efficacious preventative interventions for it are largely unknown. To fill this gap, we must: 1) investigate mutable and least-mutable risk and protective factors for DLD, 2) develop prediction tools based on them, and 3) investigate risk and protective factors that are associated with the severity of outcomes of DLD. DLD prevention and intervention (DLD-PI) aims to tackle these questions by using high-quality, large-scale registry data available in Finland. The research will be conducted through multidisciplinary, inter-sectoral, and international collaboration with the universities of Turku and Oulu, the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki University Hospital, and Newcastle University, UK. Piloting has already begun with the 1987 and 1997 Finnish Birth Cohorts. These findings will be validated in a new open-access generic cohort with an unprecedented number of variables from different registers, including an expected 150,000 children with DLD out of almost 2 million children. The results of DLD-PI will have wide impact because they enable better prediction of individual trajectories of DLD. With the ultimate aim of providing a tool to use in predicting DLD, this knowledge will enable more efficient targeting and timing of preventative interventions. The results will be essential, generalizable, and advance the field of research for other developmental and learning difficulties as well. They will also be disseminated and communicated accordingly. DLD-PI adds significantly to both research in the European Research Area and the priorities of Horizon 2020. The fellow already has extensive experience in DLD research and its methodology, and the two-way knowledge transfer will prepare her to conduct and lead future epidemiological studies in a field critically lacking specialists.