Recruiting

Shape Coding

Sponsor:

Vanderbilt University

Code:

NCT06860022

Conditions

Hearing Loss, Bilateral

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 9 - 15

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Interventions

Shape Coding

Study Details

Brief summary:

The proposed research addresses a long-standing and important challenge of improving literacy skills of children who are deaf and hard of hearing, a historically under researched group. The investigators aim to leverage shape coding - an empirically validated intervention approach for constructing sentences in spoken English - for improving how efficiently children who are deaf and hard of hearing learn to correctly construct sentences in written English. To advance the promising yet underutilized research on shape coding, the investigators complete the next logical step of applying the visual supports provided with shape coding to written language for deaf and hard of hearing children. Shape coding has been effective for teaching sentence structure in spoken English to children with language disabilities and has recently been applied to sentence structure in American Sign Language with deaf and hard of hearing children. Intervention involving shape coding is predicted to result in increased accuracy of word order in sentences in written English because deaf and hard of hearing children often benefit from visual information. The investigators will accomplish this aim using single case multiple probe across participants design studies with 30 fifth through eighth grade children who are deaf and hard of hearing. The knowledge gained will guide language and literacy intervention for children who are deaf and hard of hearing.

Conditions

Hearing Loss, Bilateral

Study ID

NCT06860022

Start date

Aug 28, 2025

Status verified date

Oct, 2025

Completion date

Dec, 2026

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Nov, 2026

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 9 - 15

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Children in grades five through eight
  • deaf or hard of hearing
  • use spoken English and American Sign Language (ASL)
  • bilateral hearing loss
  • the ability to read and understand the grammatical structures of interest
  • already be writing sentences, but demonstrate errors in word order and/or grammar.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • diagnosis of dyslexia
  • uncorrected vision impairment (i.e., identified vision loss without use of corrective lenses that interferes with eligibility evaluation tasks)
  • evidence of severe motor impairment (i.e., insufficient motor skills to complete eligibility evaluation tasks independently).

Study Design

Enrollment

30 participants

Anticipated

Intervention Model

Single group

Primary purpose

Treatment

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: Shape coding

Intervention will be introducing and utilizing Shape Coding to construct sentences.

Interventions

Shape Coding

Intervention will include introducing and reviewing the relevant shapes from Shape Coding and the order in which the shapes go in a sentence. The researcher will then model how to put the word tiles in order according to the shapes. Next the researcher and student work together to construct sentences. The student is then given the opportunity to independently construct sentences using the word tiles and Shape Coding. At the end of instruction, the researcher and student review the shapes and the student has the opportunity to independently construct sentences without shape coding.

Primary outcome measure

  • Proportion of children for whom the intervention is successful [ Time Frame: Baseline to up to 8 weeks maximum ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Adriana M Valtierra, M.S.

219-614-5980adriana.m.valtierra@vanderbilt.edu

Jena McDaniel, PhD

615-936-5114jena.mcdaniel@vumc.org

Locations

Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Recruiting

Nashville, Tennessee, United States, 37232

Contacts

Adriana M Valtierra, M.S.

219-614-5980adriana.m.valtierra@vanderbilt.edu

Principal Investigator:

Adriana M Valtierra, M.S.

More Information

Sponsor

Vanderbilt University

Last update posted

Aug 25, 2026

Last verified

Oct, 2025

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by Vanderbilt University on 2026-08-25.