Pediatric Speech Therapy Session Frequency and Speech Outcomes

Connecticut Children's Medical Center

Status: Active, not recruiting

Conditions: Language Disorders in Children; Articulation Disorders in Children; Speech Therapy; Frequency of Therapy; Communication Disorder, Childhood; Mode of Therapy; Pediatric

Treatments: Behavioral: Speech Therapy

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05900180

22-160

Details and patient eligibility

About

The goal of this clinical trial is to compare speech therapy outcomes in children ages 18 months to 16 years who participate in weekly speech therapy with home programming versus every-other week speech therapy with home programming in outpatient speech therapy. The main question it aims to answer is: Does a change in how often speech therapy sessions are delivered show an increased benefit in language and articulation standardized test scores? Participants will be randomly assigned to either (1) weekly or (2) every-other-week speech therapy for a total of 8 sessions. Researchers will compare these two groups to see if there are differences in speech outcomes.

Enrollment: 39 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 months to 16 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Medical order for speech therapy
• Patients eligible for speech therapy at Connecticut Children's (qualify for receptive, expressive language and/or articulation therapy)
• Diagnosis of communication disorder.ICD-10 codes will be utilized pertaining to expressive, receptive language and articulation disorders (ICD-10 code specific to patient: F80.0, F80.1, F80.2, F80.4, F80.9, R47.89, R41.841)
• Patient recommended for individual (i.e. not group) treatment
• 18 months to 16 years of age
• Completed 1 plan of care (POC) with a duration of 8 sessions
• Attended at least 80% of scheduled visits during their plan of care period (still completing 8 sessions of therapy, may have extended time to completion).
• Services for a full 8-session plan of care.

Exclusion criteria

• • Seeking speech therapy care for treatment of disorders related to diagnosis of voice, feeding, fluency, and/or cognition
• Patient unable to complete standardized tests (EOWPVT-4, ROWPVT-4, GFTA-3, REEL-4)
• Patients in group speech therapy
• Patients younger than 18 months or older than 16 years of age
• Not willing to complete a full POC (8 sessions)
• Unable/unwilling to attend 80% of scheduled visits

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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39 participants in 2 patient groups

Every-other-week therapy with home programming

Active Comparator group

Description:

Receipt of standard speech therapy care (every-other-week) for 8.0 sessions

Treatment:

Behavioral: Speech Therapy

Weekly therapy with home programming

Experimental group

Description:

Receipt of speech therapy care (every week) for 8.0 sessions

Treatment:

Behavioral: Speech Therapy