Welcome to the +Language is Medicine LAB
Yá'át'ééh!
The +Language is Medicine (+LiM) Lab is a community-engaged research lab focused on improving developmental, communication, and early childhood outcomes for American Indian and Alaska Native children and families.
Led by Dr. Joshuaa Allison-Burbank, a Diné and Acoma Pueblo speech-language pathologist and clinician-scientist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health, the lab brings together speech-language pathology, Indigenous child development, implementation science, public health, and community-based participatory research to address developmental disparities impacting Native children.
Our work is grounded in a simple but urgent reality: Native children continue to experience disproportionately high rates of developmental delays and disability-related disparities, while families often encounter systems that are fragmented, culturally misaligned, under-resourced, or shaped by longstanding inequities and discriminatory practices. These barriers can delay identification, limit access to services, and negatively impact long-term educational and health outcomes.
The +LiM Lab exists to partner with Native communities to change this reality.
OUR RESEARCH
The +Language is Medicine Randomized Controlled Trial (+LiM RCT) is one of several ongoing studies housed within the lab. While +LiM is currently our flagship NIH-funded clinical trial, the broader mission of the lab extends beyond a single intervention program.
Across projects, our team studies:
+ Early language and communication development in Native infants and toddlers
+ Developmental disabilities and early identification
+ Culturally grounded caregiver coaching and home visiting approaches
+ Early intervention (IDEA Part C) access and inequities
+ Indigenous data governance and community-engaged research methods
+ Workforce development and training pathways for Native-serving providers
+ Implementation science approaches to improving systems of care
+ Mobile health and technology tools that support families and providers
Our work spans clinical, community, and systems-level research with the goal of improving how Native children are identified, supported, and served across early childhood systems.
What is +LiM?
+Language is Medicine is a culturally grounded home-visiting intervention designed to support early language, communication, and social-emotional development among Diné toddlers and caregivers. The program grew from questions Dr. Allison-Burbank encountered while training and practicing as a speech-language pathologist:
Why are developmental delays so common in Native communities?
Why are children often identified late?
How can intervention better reflect Native families, relationships, language, and ways of learning?
What began as a pilot project supported through early philanthropic investment from the MacInnis Family and the Willow Fund grew into a large-scale NIH-funded clinical trial. In September 2025, +Language is Medicine received more than $3 million from the National Institutes of Health to expand this work in partnership with tribal communities and home visiting systems. Today, +LiM is embedded within established community programs, including the Center for Indigenous Health’s long-standing Family Spirit program, where home visitors are trained to support caregivers using culturally responsive developmental strategies in the home.
OUR TEAM
The +Language is Medicine Lab is powered by a predominantly Indigenous, community-rooted research team. From research coordinators and home visitors to data collectors, students, clinicians, and community partners, our work is led by people who bring lived experience, cultural knowledge, clinical expertise, and longstanding relationships with the communities we serve.
We are proud to be a largely “home-grown” team with the majority of our staff being from the communities where this work takes place. Our team includes Indigenous clinicians, researchers, students, health educators, and emerging professionals who are helping reshape what developmental and disability research can look like in Native communities.
Rather than relying solely on outside research models, we prioritize building local workforce pathways, mentorship opportunities, and community-based research capacity. This includes training speech-language pathologists, home visitors, health educators, and future Indigenous clinician-scientists to engage in culturally grounded developmental research and intervention work.
We believe Native communities should not only participate in research — they should lead it, shape it, and benefit from it.
OUR APPROACH
The +LiM Lab approaches developmental health through a strengths-based and relational lens. We believe that early communication development is deeply connected to culture, caregiving, identity, language, land, and community wellness.
As a clinician-researcher, Dr. Allison-Burbank bridges direct clinical experience with public health research to develop interventions and systems-level solutions that are practical, culturally grounded, and community-driven.
This website serves as a space to highlight our ongoing studies, partnerships, publications, training initiatives, and community-engaged work dedicated to improving outcomes for Native children and families.
Watch Joshuaa Allison-Burbank as he tells us more about the +Language is Medicine project.
