NCT06416306

Treatment Targets in Spanish and English Bilingual Speech Intervention

Speech Intervention for Bilingual Children

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: Phase 1
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 16 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Philip Combiths · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 3 Years – 8 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn which speech treatment targets result in the greatest amount of speech learning in Spanish-English bilingual children with speech sound disorders. The main questions it aims to answer are: * Does linguistic complexity of the treatment target increase the amount of generalized learning within the treated language? * Does linguistic complexity of the treatment target increase the amount of generalized speech across languages? Researchers will compare intervention effects across treatment provided in English and Spanish to see if the effect differs according to the language of intervention. Participants will: * Attend between 12 and 18 45-minute speech intervention sessions in Spanish or English for up to 6 weeks * Attend assessment visits before and after intervention * Attend follow-up assessment visits 1 month and 2 months after intervention

Detailed description

This study is a single-subject experimental design with staggered multiple baselines examining speech intervention for Spanish-English bilingual children with speech sound disorders. The study includes two arms based on the language of intervention (Spanish or English). Within each arm are two conditions that manipulate the linguistic complexity of the speech treatment target (simple consonant singleton or complex consonant cluster). Participants will be pseudo-randomly assigned to these arms and conditions. The primary outcome is system-wide generalization; specifically, a) within-language and b) across-language generalization to untreated sounds. Accuracy data for the dependent variable will be derived from narrow phonetic transcription of participants' productions from speech probes in English and Spanish. The entire generalization probe is administered at each assessment visit (Pre, Post, and 1- and 2-Month Follow-Ups), and shorter subset probes targeting only monitored sounds are administered during Baselines and weekly during Treatment.

Conditions

• Speech Sound Disorder

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Speech Intervention	The treatment will begin with imitation, whereby the child will produce target words following the study clinician's verbal model with 1:1 clinician feedback for the accuracy of the child's productions. This will include explicit articulatory instruction (i.e., verbal and visual cues) to elicit correct target forms. When a child achieves 75% accuracy following a verbal model across 2 consecutive sessions or completes the 9th session (whichever is first), treatment will shift to spontaneous production, in which the child will produce target words spontaneously or through elicitation without a verbal model. Treatment materials will be images of treatment target words, interactive games and stories, and a standard set of toys.

Timeline

• Start date: 2024-05-08
• Primary completion: 2027-03-31
• Completion: 2027-03-31
• First posted: 2024-05-16
• Last updated: 2025-09-05

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States