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ASSIST: Treatment for Childhood Apraxia of Speech

NCT03903120 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: PHASE1 · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 51

Last updated 2026-05-22

Study results available
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Summary

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a pediatric motor speech disorder that impairs the planning of movements needed for intelligible speech. Children with CAS often show little or slow progress in standard speech therapy. This research is a Phase 1 study that tests initial efficacy and optimal parameters of a theoretically based integral stimulation treatment called ASSIST (Apraxia of Speech Systematic Integral Stimulation Treatment). In four small randomized group design studies across three recruitment cycles (N=20 per cycle), children receive 16 hours of individual ASSIST. The studies systematically investigate the effect of treatment (ASSIST vs. no ASSIST; Study 1), the effect of complexity (complex vs. simple utterances; Study 2), the effect of lexicality (word vs. nonword targets; Study 3), and the effect of treatment intensity (Massed vs. Distributed ASSIST; Study 4). Studies 1 and 4 also systematically examine the effect of treatment on functional outcome measures, including parent ratings of intelligibility and communicative participation, and objective intelligibility measures obtained from unfamiliar listeners.

Conditions

  • Childhood Apraxia of Speech

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

ASSIST

Integral stimulation based treatment ("watch me, listen to me, say what I say") for CAS that is based on principles of motor learning and neuroplasticity and includes a systematic approach to adaptive practice. Treatment includes a focus on prosody, use of visual, tactile, auditory cues, slowing speech rate, and large amounts of practice.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)

    collaborator NIH

  • Temple University

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Edwin Maas, Ph.D. · Temple University

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
4 Years
Max Age
9 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2019-04-18
Primary Completion
2024-08-31
Completion
2025-11-30

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

More Related Trials

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT03903120 on ClinicalTrials.gov