NCT06860022

Sentence Shaping - DHH

Sentence Shaping: Written Language Intervention for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Middle Schoolers

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 30 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Vanderbilt University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 9 Years – 15 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The proposed research addresses a long-standing and important challenge of improving literacy skills of children who are deaf and hard of hearing, a historically under researched group. The investigators aim to leverage shape coding - an empirically validated intervention approach for constructing sentences in spoken English - for improving how efficiently children who are deaf and hard of hearing learn to correctly construct sentences in written English. To advance the promising yet underutilized research on shape coding, the investigators complete the next logical step of applying the visual supports provided with shape coding to written language for deaf and hard of hearing children. Shape coding has been effective for teaching sentence structure in spoken English to children with language disabilities and has recently been applied to sentence structure in American Sign Language with deaf and hard of hearing children. Intervention involving shape coding is predicted to result in increased accuracy of word order in sentences in written English because deaf and hard of hearing children often benefit from visual information. The investigators will accomplish this aim using single case multiple probe across participants design studies with 30 fifth through eighth grade children who are deaf and hard of hearing. The knowledge gained will guide language and literacy intervention for children who are deaf and hard of hearing.

Conditions

• Hearing Loss, Bilateral

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Shape Coding	Intervention will include introducing and reviewing the relevant shapes from Shape Coding and the order in which the shapes go in a sentence. The researcher will then model how to put the word tiles in order according to the shapes. Next the researcher and student work together to construct sentences. The student is then given the opportunity to independently construct sentences using the word tiles and Shape Coding. At the end of instruction, the researcher and student review the shapes and the student has the opportunity to independently construct sentences without shape coding.

Timeline

• Start date: 2025-08-28
• Primary completion: 2026-04-01
• Completion: 2026-10-01
• First posted: 2025-03-05
• Last updated: 2025-10-22

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States