University of Wisconsin–Madison

Welcome to the GLEAM Study!

Thanks for your interest!

Learn more about enrollment

Introduction

Gaze-based Language Evaluation and Access in Motor Disability (GLEAM) wants to come up with a better way of assessing language skills in children who have severe motor and communication difficulties. 

By asking children to look at pictures showing words that they hear, we hope to find out what vocabulary children already know and how they learn new word.  

GLEAM is funded by the National Institutes of Health R21DC020613. 

Goals

We know that every child’s language learning experience is unique, particularly when they have motor impairment and communication disorders. Our goal is to capture the full range of word knowledge in children who have difficulties expressing what they know. Through this, we hope to better understand each child’s individual strengths, challenges, communication styles, and needs for support. 

Participation

We are recruiting children who: 

  1. Are between 3 and 7 years of age
  1. Have a medical diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy or other non-progressive motor impairment 
  1. Have difficulties with their speech 
  1. Are exposed to English in the home 

Participation will include:   

  1. A 30-minute phone call with a study team member to answer questions about your child’s development and current communication.  
  1. Two 60-90 minute, in-person visits to the Waisman Center with a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist.   
  1. A short online questionnaire about your child’s development.  

Consent will be requested to access your child’s medical records for information relevant to your child’s diagnosis and development.  

Thanks to new technology, many children who have difficulties with speech are finding other ways to express themselves! By enrolling in this study, you are helping us examine receptive language skills in children with severe motor impairment and speech impairment for the very first time. This will make a real difference for other children, families, and healthcare providers.  

(FAQ) Frequently Asked Questions

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Children who: 

  1. Are 3 to 7 years old 
  2. Have a medical diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy or other non-progressive motor impairment 
  3. Have difficulties with their speech 
  4. Are exposed to English in the home

Enrollment Link

You can also contact the study team directly: 

📧 gleam@waisman.wisc.edu

📞 (608) 263-5822 

You will be asked to complete the following during study participation: 

  1. A  30-minute phone or Zoom interview with a study team member to answer questions about your child’s development and current communication.  
  1. Two 60-90 minute, in-person visits to the Waisman Center with a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist.   
  1. A short online questionnaire about your child’s development.  

Specific activities during the in-person visits include: 

  1. Play with a caregiver  
  1. Attempt to repeat words and sentences 
  1. A hearing screening 
  1. Standardized speech and language assessments 

A task where the child hears different words and looks at pictures on a TV screen.

Consent will be requested to access your child’s medical records for information relevant to your child’s diagnosis and development.  

Yes! Families will receive $50 for participating in the study, and your child will get a small toy (valued $15 or less). 

You will also receive a brief clinical summary of your child’s performance on all standardized assessments after the session. If your child scores below normal limits on any of our assessments, you will also receive recommendations and referral sources. 

Yes! You will also receive a brief clinical summary of your child’s performance on all standardized assessments after the session. If your child scores below normal limits on any of our assessments, you will also receive recommendations and referral sources. 

Yes. Our testing rooms are fully wheelchair accessible, and we routinely accommodate medical equipment and extra caregivers in our testing space. 

Please email us at gleam@waisman.wisc.edu or call (608) 263-5822—we’re happy to talk through your questions. 

Absolutely! We know that children communicate in many ways including AAC, gestures, or body language. We are interested in capturing every child’s unique voice in our study!

All information is confidential and stored securely following University of Wisconsin–Madison and federal research regulations. Only members of the study team will have access to your child’s information, and all data will be de-identified, meaning we will use a unique code, instead of your child’s name.  

This study is approved by the UW-Madison Institutional Review Board (IRB #2018-0580). 

To learn more about what this means and how research participants are protected, watch this short video. 

You can also contact the study team directly:  

📧 gleam@waisman.wisc.edu
📞 (608) 263-5822 

Researchers

Dr. Katherine Hustad

Principal Investigator, Waisman Center & Professor, UW-Madison

Katherine Hustad is a professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and director of the Wisconsin Intelligibility, Speech, and Communication (WISC) Lab. She is a renowned expert in pediatric motor speech disorders and has devoted her career to understanding how children with cerebral palsy and typically developing children develop speech and communication skills. Through her more than 20-year longitudinal research program, Dr. Hustad has advanced early diagnosis, improved intervention practices, and deepened our understanding of communication outcomes for children with and without motor speech disorders. Dr. Hustad is also Sydney’s PhD mentor and will supervise the project.

Dr. Jenny Safran

Professor, Department of Psychology; Investigator, Waisman Center 

Research foci include statistical learning, or the means by which infants track patterns and regularities in the input, and its relationship to other cognitive processes such as prediction and active sampling. We are also very involved in questions concerning the nature of the knowledge acquired during language learning, including what words actually mean to babies, the environmental input that shapes word knowledge, and experience-driven individual differences. Finally, we actively collaborate with researchers who have extensive expertise in developmental disabilities in order to better understand diverse developmental trajectories in language learning.

Dr. Yiran Chen

Post Doctoral Researcher  

We all acquire our native language(s) so effortlessly that it often escapes our mind how daunting the task actually is. However, children seem to be equipped for this challenge early on. My research focuses on deciphering how young children use and integrate subtle and complicated cues, such as statistical distribution of linguistic and social information, in their language development.

Alex White

M.A., CCC-SLP

Alex is a certified speech language pathologist and PhD student in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. She earned her B.S. in communication disorders and linguistics from New Mexico State University and her M.A. in speech language pathology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Alex’s current research interests include methods for effective implementation of AAC and long term effects of a total communication approach when working with individuals who have motor speech disorders.