Learning Disabilities Research Centers Program in the US

Deadline: 29-Dec-22

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) invites center applications for the Learning Disabilities Research Centers Program, hereafter termed ‘LDRCs’.

The LDRCs’ initiative focuses on generating new scientific knowledge to inform understanding of specific learning disorders (SLDs) and comorbid conditions through synergistic, integrated, team-based transdisciplinary science. 

This funding opportunity announcement invites both foundational and translational, transdisciplinary research addressing the definition, classification, etiology, diagnosis, epidemiology, early identification, prevention-based approaches, and remediation of children, adolescents, or young adults identified with or at risk for SLDs in component oral language abilities, reading, written expression abilities, mathematics and relationships among these SLDs and other disabilities and co-occurring or comorbid conditions.

Purpose

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites specialized center applications (referred to as Learning Disabilities Research Centers [LDRCs]) to develop new knowledge about learning difficulties and specific learning disorders (SLDs) in language, reading, writing, mathematics, and comorbid conditions.

This FOA focuses on SLDs impacting component oral language abilities (e.g., morphology, phonology, pragmatics, vocabulary), reading (e.g., decoding and word recognition skills, reading fluency and automaticity, reading comprehension), written expression abilities (e.g., composition, handwriting and graphomotor skills, spelling), mathematics (e.g., subitizing, symbolic and non-symbolic quantity or number comprehension and processing, number sense, math fact learning and retrieval, mathematical word problems, mathematics procedural learning, higher-order mathematics competencies), and relationships among these SLDs and other disabilities and co-occurring or comorbid conditions.

Research Scope and Foci

This FOA encourages research studies ranging the spectrum of basic through translational science focused on SLDs and learning difficulties in the domains of component oral language abilities, reading, written expression abilities, mathematics, and relationships among these SLDs and other disabilities and co-occurring or comorbid conditions.

This project is intended as an initial effort by the LDRCs to have meaningful, bidirectional engagement with their respective communities and to study the potential efficacy of the approaches taken. The expectation is that LDRC applicants will utilize the science around community engagement to

• Propose approaches to build bidirectional communication;
• Propose formal methods for gathering formative and summative input to evaluate their success; and, critically,
• Inform agile improvements in engagement strategies. In line with the risk level for both the emerging/high-risk and the community-engagement projects, neither requires pilot data as part of the application submission. 

Themes

This FOA requires well-integrated, synergistic, transdisciplinary research studies that address one or more of the following broad themes: 

• Refine classification and definition models of SLDs for component oral language abilities, reading, written expression abilities, and/or mathematics and, critically, develop developmentally sensitive models that prospectively predict risk of substantial learning difficulties and SLDs; 
• Further extend basic and translational research on SLDs impacting component oral language abilities, reading, writing, and/or mathematics and co-occurring conditions and enhance understanding of the nature of the relationship between SLDs and co-occurring conditions; 
• Enhance understanding of risk factors for the development of learning difficulties or SLDs and predictors of responsiveness to intervention preceding formal intervention and during intervention efforts; 
• Further identify basic neurobiological, genetic/epigenetic, cognitive/behavioral, and environmental mechanisms that influence the expression of SLDs at different developmental epochs across the lifespan; 
• Enhance the research knowledge base on early preventive efforts (i.e., prevention based models) including enhanced primary prevention services (e.g., early, primary intervention and screening) and later secondary and tertiary intervention efforts for those individuals minimally responsive to early intervention; 
• Emphasize research efforts which include a substantial emphasis on diverse participants samples. Applicants will need to make a case for why their population constitutes a diverse sample. For the purposes of the FOA, diverse participant samples include but are not limited to a) individuals from historically under-researched or understudied groups at high risk for or with demonstrated learning difficulties or SLDs, b) multilingual and English language learning populations, c) Native American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders’ communities in the U.S., U.S. territories and sovereign tribal nations, d) individuals experiencing housing insecurity and those involved in the social services or justice systems and e) more broadly, individuals living in poverty. 

Funding Information

• Funds Available and Anticipated Number of Awards.
  • NICHD intends to commit up to $5,400,000 in total costs in FY2023 to fund 3 awards.
• Award Budget.
  • Application budgets are limited to $1,300,000 per year in direct costs.
• Award Project Period.
  • The scope of the proposed project should determine the project period. The maximum project period is 5 years.

Activities

Examples of LDRC Research Topics

• Listed below are possible suggestions of responsive research topics for this FOA. This list is not intended to be comprehensive, and applicants should not feel confined to the examples listed below. 
• Develop sustainable models for community engagement focused on communities with learners experiencing significant learning difficulties and SLDs.
• Conduct neurodevelopmental studies of learners at high risk for SLDs focused on individuals from URGs. 
• Model and develop comprehensive risk assessments of anticipated minimal response before formal instruction in mathematics, reading and/or writing. Develop complementary modeling approaches to identify early behavioral, epigenetic or neurobiological indicators of instructional response that presage minimal intervention response for children and youth exposed to formal instructional and receiving active intervention.
• Develop and refine classification systems that provide categorical and/or probabilistic judgments about disability status utilizing simulated and human performance data.
• Develop and refine causal, probabilistic, and biologically plausible models of reading, writing and mathematics development.
• Enhance understanding of causes versus consequences of reading and mathematics development on functional and structural brain development.
• Develop and refine early screening efforts to identify children at high risk for learning difficulties (including multilingual and English language learning individuals) who may be streamlined to early, intensive intervention services regardless of disability status.
• Develop and evaluate enhanced, intensive, multi-year intervention efforts for children at high risk of learning challenges or those with demonstrated minimal response in reading, writing or mathematics.

Eligibility Criteria

Eligible Organizations

• Higher Education Institutions
  • Public/State Controlled Institutions of Higher Education.
  • Private Institutions of Higher Education.
  • The following types of Higher Education Institutions are always encouraged to apply for NIH support as Public or Private Institutions of Higher Education:
    • Hispanic-serving Institutions.
    • Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
    • Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs).
    • Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions.
    • Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs)
• Nonprofits Other Than Institutions of Higher Education
  • Nonprofits with 501(c)(3) IRS Status (Other than Institutions of Higher Education).
  • Nonprofits without 501(c)(3) IRS Status (Other than Institutions of Higher Education).
• For-Profit Organizations
  • Small Businesses.
  • For-Profit Organizations (Other than Small Businesses).
• Local Governments
  • State Governments.
  • County Governments.
  • City or Township Governments.
  • Special District Governments.
  • Indian/Native American Tribal Governments (Federally Recognized).
  • Indian/Native American Tribal Governments (Other than Federally Recognized).
• Federal Governments
  • Eligible Agencies of the Federal Government.
  • U.S. Territory or Possession.
• Foreign Institutions
  • Non-domestic (non-U.S.) Entities (Foreign Institutions) are not eligible to apply.
  • Non-domestic (non-U.S.) components of U.S. Organizations are not eligible to apply.
  • Foreign components, as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, are allowed.

For more information, visit NICHD.

For more information, visit https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=343968