Building Sentences With Preschoolers Who Use AAC

University of Central Florida

Status and phase: Completed; Phase 2

Conditions: Speech Sound Disorder; Speech Intelligibility; Down Syndrome; Speech and Language Disorder; Speech Disorders in Children

Treatments: Behavioral: Standard of Care / Business as Usual; Behavioral: AAC Generative Language Intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT03538925

1061417

R01DC016321 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

The focus of this investigation is to compare the effectiveness of the AAC Generative Language Intervention approach to an AAC Standard of Care condition on preschool sentence productions. All children will use existing AAC iPad applications.

Full description

The central hypothesis is that preschoolers receiving AAC Generative Language Intervention will create longer, more grammatically complete sentences compared with the Standard of Care condition. Specific Aim 1 compares these interventions for preschoolers with severe speech impairments and typical receptive language, and Specific Aim 2 does the same for children with Down syndrome. Specific Aim 3 tests for possible moderation of the intervention effect by age, dynamic assessment scores, sentence type, receptive language abilities, prior AAC use, sex, mental age, and disability. Aims 1 and 2 will be accomplished using randomized controlled trials.

Enrollment: 70 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 3 to 4 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Clinical Identification of Significant Speech Impairment
• Must Speak English as a Primary Language
• Must Be Able to Express At Least 25 Words (using any communication mode)
• Must Be Able to Accurately Select Picture Symbols on iPad Communication App with at Least 50% Accuracy
• Vision and Hearing within Functional Limits or Corrected to be within Functional Limits for Study Activities

Exclusion criteria

• Clinical Diagnosis of Autism or Social Communication Disorder
• Primary Language Spoken is a Language Other than English

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Triple Blind

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70 participants in 2 patient groups

Treatment Group

Experimental group

Description:

AAC Generative Language Intervention

Treatment:

Behavioral: AAC Generative Language Intervention

Behavioral: Standard of Care / Business as Usual

Business as Usual

Active Comparator group

Description:

Standard of Care / Business as Usual

Treatment:

Behavioral: Standard of Care / Business as Usual