Word Learning in Children With Autism

Summary

The project highlights one of the primary areas of research within the KIDDRC- language and communication. The focus is on language and communication in children with autism and minimal verbal skills (less than 20 spoken words). Remaining nonverbal past the age of 5 years has been considered a poor prognostic indicator for future language developments, yet few interventions have been developed to address this problem. The Specific Aims for this project are (1) to further investigate a multimodal intervention for school-age children with minimal verbal skills-defined as less than 20 words spontaneously spoken, signed, or selected via graphic symbol selection-and (2) to identify significant covariates associated with differential responding to the intervention. The research addresses an unmet need to promote spoken word production in children who remain essentially nonverbal well past the ages associated with speech acquisition. The project is also innovative because: a) it investigates a multimodal intervention based on principles of phonotactic probability and neighborhood density in combination with augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), and b) it investigates novel predictors of treatment response that are obtained through cutting-edge technologies. This intervention will have better success than past interventions because the intervention will provide increased input through speech, digitized speech and visual images and additional speech sound practice for words that are comprised of high frequency sounds in the child's repertoire. Extant speech sounds in each participant's repertoire will be identified using LENA™ digitized recordings. Vocabulary words will then be selected based on a child's speech sound repertoire and principles of word learning-words with high probability speech sound sequences will be selected and taught with either multimodal intervention or a treatment as usual condition. Responses to these interventions will be evaluated using a Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trials (SMART) design. Different outcomes may be associated with individual and environmental predictors identified in our previous research. Individual predictors include verbal comprehension, imitation skills, adaptive behavior, nonverbal speech sound repertoire, and communication complexity. Communication complexity will be measured with the Communication Complexity Scale (CCS), developed by the Principal Investigator. Environmental predictors include language input to the child as measured with LENA™ recording devices. Results will determine if the multimodal intervention is more successful than treatment as usual for teaching word productions.

Conditions

• Autistic Disorders Spectrum

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Multi-Modal

Intervention combining speech sound practice, AAC and receptive practice on a set of individually determined words. Words are selected based on phonological properties. Delivered 3 times per week.

OTHER

Treatment as Usual

Teacher provided with word list and teacher intervening as usual.

BEHAVIORAL

High Intensity Multi-Modal

Intervention combining speech sound practice, AAC and receptive practice on a set of individually determined words. Words are selected based on phonological properties. Delivered 5 times per week.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

  collaborator NIH

• University of Kansas

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

SEQUENTIAL

Eligibility

Min Age

5 Years

Max Age

10 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2016-11-01

Primary Completion

2021-05-31

Completion

2021-05-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations