Developmental Language Disorder
Conditions
Keywords
treatment
Brief summary
This is a small-scale treatment study designed to determine which teaching methods result in the best learning. Treatment focuses on helping children with a developmental language disorder learn parts of grammar. Preschool children will receive assessments to determine whether they have a developmental language disorder and what parts of grammar they have not mastered. Children will receive one-on-one behavioral treatment over a six week period. Half of the children will be first taught a grammatical form they sometimes use and then one they rarely use. The other half will start with a grammatical form they rarely use. The study seeks to determine whether starting with something children sometimes use correctly (an easier part of speech) will speed later learning of something that is harder for them. The children's ability to use the grammatical forms taught to them will be assessed throughout the treatment period and approximately six weeks after treatment ends.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALConversational recasting
The treatment procedure uses 24 treatment doses embedded into child-friendly activities (crafts, book reading, play). Each each consists of a clinician eliciting use of a targeted grammatical form, a child's attempt (correct or incorrect) to use that form, and an immediate clinician repetition of the child's attempt (a recast), correcting any ungrammatical elements as needed. Clinicians must also attempt to gain the child's attention before providing the recast. Treatment sessions are approximately 30 minutes in duration.
Sponsors
University of Arizona
Study design
Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE (Caregiver)
Masking description
Parents are masked concerning children's specific language goals and treatment conditions.
Intervention model description
quasi-experimental design with two active treatment groups
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
4 Years to 6 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* Native English speaking * Passed a pure-tone hearing screening * 4-6 years of age * SPELT-P2 (language) test score of \< 87 * K-ABC-II Nonverbal Scale (cognition) test score of \>75 * Sufficient morpheme errors to serve as treatment and control targets * Articulations skills sufficient to judge use of language targets * Able to attend treatment daily
Exclusion criteria
* Parent report of other handicapping conditions * Clinical signs of other disorders * Enrolled in outside treatment
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Change in the use of treated grammatical forms in untreated contexts | 3 days per week over 6 weeks | Clinicians elicit ten uses of the trained grammatical form using toys, activities, and vocabulary with-held from treatment sessions. Change is assessed throughout the treatment period. |
| Change in the use of grammatical forms in untreated contexts | 3 days per week over 6 weeks | Clinicians elicit ten uses of the untrained grammatical form using toys, activities, and vocabulary with-held from treatment sessions. Change is assessed throughout the treatment period. |
| Retention of trained grammatical forms | One session, approximately 6 weeks after treatment concludes. | Clinicians elicit ten uses of the trained grammatical form using toys, activities, and vocabulary with-held from treatment sessions. |
| Retention of untrained grammatical forms | One session, approximately 6 weeks after treatment concludes. | Clinicians elicit ten uses of the untrained grammatical form using toys, activities, and vocabulary with-held from treatment sessions. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Change in spontaneous use | 5 sessions a week over 6 weeks. | The number of unprompted use of the trained grammatical form that occurs during treatment sessions. Change is measured relative to baseline. |
Countries
United States
Contacts
Primary ContactElena Plante, PhD
Backup ContactRebecca Vance, MS
Outcome results
None listed