A pilot study to measure the efficacy of a manualised oral narrative intervention programme for school-age children with narrative delay

For school-age children with narrative delay is a manualised oral narrative intervention programme more effective than typical practice as measured by narrative macrostructure, microstructure and quality: A pilot study

Status

Completed

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Interventional

Source

ANZCTR

Registry ID

ACTRN12613001108707

Enrollment

Registered

2013-10-03

Start date

2014-03-03

Completion date

2014-03-14

Last updated

2020-01-13

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

None listed

Brief summary

This project will design, develop and investigate efficacy of a manualised theoretically driven oral narrative programme. Intervention will involve explicitly teaching macrostructure to 12 Pre-Primary children with narrative difficulties in small groups in a mainstream school. Multiple baseline repeated measures single-case design will be used to evaluate changes. Measures will include narrative macrostructure, microstructure and quality. The relationship between vocabulary and memory and response to intervention will also be investigated. This study has practical and theoretical significance as it will add to evidence for narrative intervention focusing on macrostructure and investigate the influence on vocabulary and sentence development.

Interventions

Phase One: Designing, Manualising and Piloting the Treatment Programme 1. Design narrative programme structure and develop manual to include scope and sequence of intervention targets and parameters of intervention. 2. Map structure to intervention sessions and goals/targets for each session. 3. Develop teaching scripts for each narrative element, to include a definition, model and examples. 4. Develop scripted contingent responses for macrostructure and microstructure elements. 5. Create scoring procedure to evaluate participants’ performance for macrostructure and microstructure as well as a pre and post measure of narrative quality. Intervention sessions will consist of a range of activities such as book sharing, story generation, picture sequencing, story re-tells and character maps. These activities are commonly used in Speech Pathology sessions with young children. Each intervention session will last for 45 minutes. The programme will be piloted with 6 monolingual English speaking participants, aged between 5.5 and 6.5. Intervention will be carried out in 2 groups of three, 3 times a week for 6 weeks. Changes to the programme will be made as needed, based on participant engagement and clinician judgment. Reasons for changes will be documented for future reference.

Study design

Allocation

Non-randomised trial

Primary purpose

Treatment

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

All

Age

5 Years to 6 Years

Healthy volunteers

Yes

Inclusion criteria

Six monolingual English-speaking children between the ages of 5.5 to 6.5 with narrative delay will be selected from a metropolitan mainstream school. The school will be implementing typical classroom practice that does not include explicit teaching of narrative. A parent/teacher questionnaire will be used to ensure all participants are typically developing with no evidence of significant hearing, vision, behavioural, language and educational or medical issues present.

Exclusion criteria

Evidence of significant hearing, vision, behavioural, language and educational or medical issues.

Outcome results