The identification of the FOXP2 gene can be traced back to  the study of the KE family, a British family of Pakistani origin, where about half of them had exhibited a speech order called developmental verbal dyspraxia (DVD) (Hurst, Baraitser, Auger, Graham & Norell, 1990). DVD is a motor disorder which results in the inability of utilizing one’s motor control to carry out proper movements for speech during a child’s language learning stage. The Hurst et al. (1990) study had observed that approximately half of the KE family had been suffering from DVD over three generations. It is then concluded that the this condition was genetically inherited.

Media exposure of the KE family had led to the paper written by Myrna Gopnik (1990), who was at the time travelling in Britain. In her study, she had collected and analysed utterances from individuals suffering from DVD. Gopnik (1990) had hypothesised that the disorder affects not just general language performance, but specifically the usage of grammar. This led to a popular promotion of the term “grammar gene” and also the position of a possible grammar-specific genetic disorder, which are considered very controversial. However, this hypothesis was subsequently disproved by study in 1995, which had concluded that the disorder not only impairs linguistic ability, but also intellectual and physiological features; this effectively invalidates the “grammar gene” notion. (Vargha-Khadem, Watkins, Alcock, Fletcher & Passingham, 1995)

In 1998, a study by Oxford University geneticists Fisher, Monaco, Lai, Hurst, and Vargha-Khadem observed the distribution samples of DNA of members from the KE family and they had concluded that the inheritance of DVD was related to a region within Chromosome 7. By 2001, through various methods of analysis, Fisher et al. (2001) had identified that the mutation which may have influences upon DVD inheritance is in a gene located within Chromosome 7. Further analysis led them to discover that the gene codes for a protein belonging to the forkhead box protein family, leading them to name it FOXP2.