Recruiting

Grammar Treatment

Sponsor:

University of Arizona

Code:

NCT05953077

Conditions

Developmental Language Disorder

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 4 - 6

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Interventions

Conversational recasting

Study Details

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.

Conditions

Developmental Language Disorder

Study ID

NCT05953077

Start date

Feb 1, 2022

Status verified date

Jan, 2024

Completion date

Apr 30, 2025

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Oct 30, 2024

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 4 - 6

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

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

Study Design

Enrollment

32 participants

Anticipated

Allocation

Non randomized

Intervention Model

Parallel Assignment

Primary purpose

Treatment

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: Easy first

Children are treated for an emergent grammatical form that is used correctly at least 60% during three pre-treatment probe sessions. This form is treated until children generalize it's use an average of 90% or more across 3 probe sessions. Their treatment target is then switched to a grammatical form that is used less than 30% correct across 3 pre-treatment probe sessions.

active comparator: Hard first

Children are treated for a grammatical form that is used accurately less than 30% of the time during 3 pre-treatment probe sessions. This form is treated until children generalize it's use an average of 90% or more across 3 probe sessions. Their treatment target is then switched to a grammatical form that is used less than 30% correct across 3 pre-treatment probe sessions.

Interventions

Conversational 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.

Primary outcome measure

  • Change in the use of treated grammatical forms in untreated contexts [ Time Frame: 3 days per week over 6 weeks ]
  • Change in the use of grammatical forms in untreated contexts [ Time Frame: 3 days per week over 6 weeks ]
  • Retention of trained grammatical forms [ Time Frame: One session, approximately 6 weeks after treatment concludes. ]
  • Retention of untrained grammatical forms [ Time Frame: One session, approximately 6 weeks after treatment concludes. ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Elena Plante, PhD

520-621-5080eplante@arizona.edu

Rebecca Vance, MS

520-626-9332rbvance@arizona.edu

Locations

University of Arizona

Recruiting

Tucson, Arizona, United States, 85721

Contacts

Elena Plante, PhD

520-621-5080eplante@arizona.edu

Rebecca Vance, PhD

520-626-9332

More Information

Sponsor

University of Arizona

Last update posted

Aug 26, 2024

Last verified

Jan, 2024

Keywords

  • treatment

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by University of Arizona on 2024-08-26.