The Effect of Prior Learning on Treatment of Morpheme Errors

University of Arizona

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Developmental Language Disorder

Treatments: Behavioral: Conversational recasting

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05953077

DLD-Tx1

Details and patient eligibility

About

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.

Enrollment: 32 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 4 to 6 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

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

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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32 participants in 2 patient groups

Easy first

Experimental group

Description:

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.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Conversational recasting

Hard first

Active Comparator group

Description:

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.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Conversational recasting