Down Syndrome
Conditions
Keywords
Down syndrome, language development, language processing, language input
Brief summary
The long-term study goal is to experimentally evaluate the components (and likely active ingredients) of early language interventions for young children with Down syndrome (DS). The overall objective is to determine how single-word and telegraphic simplification affects real-time language processing and word learning in young children with DS (relative to full, grammatical utterances). The proposed project will investigate three specific aims: 1) Determine how single-word and telegraphic simplification affects language processing. 2) Determine how single-word and telegraphic simplification affects word learning. 3) Evaluate child characteristics that may moderate the effects of linguistic simplification on language processing and word learning. Aim 1 will test the hypothesis that children with DS will process grammatical utterances faster and more accurately than telegraphic or single-word utterances. Aim 2 will test the hypothesis that overall, children will demonstrate better word learning in the grammatical compared to the single-word and telegraphic conditions. Aim 3 will test the hypothesis that receptive language and nonverbal cognitive abilities will be significant moderators, such that children with stronger linguistic and cognitive skills will show the greatest benefit from grammatical input but children with lower linguistic and cognitive scores will perform similarly across conditions.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALLinguistic simplification
Children will participate in screen-based language processing and word learning tasks in which they hear utterances with different types and amounts of linguistic simplification (i.e., a within-group manipulation).
Sponsors
Michigan State University
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Study design
Allocation
NA
Intervention model
SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
2 Years to 7 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* Down syndrome English as primary language 2-7 years old
Exclusion criteria
* Acquired brain injury Cerebral palsy Uncorrected vision or hearing impairment
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Gaze location on Looking-While-Listening (LWL) tasks | Baseline | LWL involves a child looking at a screen with two images, one on each side of the screen, while being provided an auditory cue that includes the name of the target image. The primary outcome is a dichotomous variable indicating whether the child is fixated on the target image or the distracter image; gaze directed at neither image will be considered missing. It will be determined whether gaze is to the left or right image, using trained coders who are blind to target side. Gaze location will be observed every 33 ms from 300 ms after onset to 2000 ms after target word onset, for a total of 51 observations per trial. Analyses will focus on differences across trial types and child characteristics in the trajectory of gaze location over the course of the trial. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Gaze location in Teaching Phase of Study 2b (Fast Mapping) | Baseline | A secondary outcome measure will be gaze location during the Teaching Phase of the Fast Mapping task (Study 2b). The variable is a dichotomous variable indicating whether the child is fixated on the novel image (only a single image is presented in each trial during the Teaching Phase) or not. It will be determined whether gaze is directed to the novel image, as our prior attempts to manually code single-object trials have not been successful. Only children who successfully calibrate and provide adequate automatic eye-tracking data in the Fast Mapping task will be included. Gaze location will be observed every 33 ms during the Teaching Trials. Analyses will focus on differences across trial types (single-word vs. full, grammatical teaching utterances). |
Countries
United States
Contacts
CONTACTCourtney Venker, PhD
CONTACTJennifer Johnson, M.S.
PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATORCourtney Venker, PhD
Michigan State University
Outcome results
None listed