NCT06250101

Training Grammar With Meaning

Study 5: Effects of Semantic Support

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 24 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Arizona · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 48 Months – 83 Months
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This study will enroll children between the ages of 4 and 6 years of age who exhibit significant difficulty developing language skills without any other handicapping conditions. Children will receive standardized language, hearing, and cognitive testing to confirm a diagnosis of developmental language disorder. Children will be enrolled in a half-day summer camp program for six weeks during which they will receive treatment designed to improve their language skills. Children will be seen again approximately six weeks after the end of treatment to determine how much learning they have retained.

Detailed description

Children between 4 years, 0 months and 6 years 11 months are eligible. A diagnosis of developmental language disorders will be confirmed as normal nonverbal cognitive function, passing a pure-tone audiometric screening, and a test score consistent with developmental language disorder on a standardized language test, and parent report of no other diagnosed handicapping condition. Speech skills and vocabulary skills will be described via standardized testing. Children enrolled in treatment are seen for up to 28 consecutive weekdays. The study starts with three days of baseline assessment of morpheme use for potential treatment targets. Two are selected for study, with one treated and one tracked over the course of treatment. Treatment is embedded in child-friendly activities like games, book reading, and craft activities. Children are prompted to use the treated morpheme in conversation. Immediately following this attempt, the treating clinician repeats the child's utterance, correcting any ungrammatical forms. Half of the children will also receive explanations of what the key words in sentences mean (e.g., to twirl means to turn around fast). Generalization to untreated contexts is assessed 2-3 times weekly. Retention of learning is measured about six weeks after the end of treatment.

Conditions

• Language Disorders in Children

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Enhanced Conversational Recast treatment	In the context of child-friendly activities, the clinician prompts the child to attempt to use the grammatical form targeted in the treatment. The clinician immediately restates the child's attempt (i.e., the recast), correcting any ungrammatical elements. Clinicians elicit and recasts 24 utterances per session.

Timeline

• Start date: 2024-06-17
• Primary completion: 2025-08-30
• Completion: 2025-08-30
• First posted: 2024-02-08
• Last updated: 2026-04-02
• Results posted: 2026-02-10

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States