Determining Optimal Treatment Intensity for Children With Language Impairment

Summary

The purpose of this study is to determine the amount of speech-language intervention children with language impairment need to make vocabulary gains. The investigators hope to identify the optimal amount of intervention needed as well as the point at which adding more intervention is no longer beneficial.

Participants will be randomly assigned (like a flip of a coin) to attend therapy either one time a week for 10 weeks (2 hours a session) or 4 times a week for 10 weeks (30 min per session). Each therapy session will follow a word learning intervention that is designed to increase children's word learning abilities using rich, robust word learning strategies within story book readings.

The optimal amount of intervention relates to duration, dose, and frequency. Duration refers to how long the child is seen for (e.g., 10 weeks, 1 year). Dose represents the number of exposures to each new vocabulary word within a therapy session. Frequency represents the number of therapy sessions per week.

The investigators will test the hypothesis that distributed learning leads to higher gains. The investigators propose that the greatest gains will be observed for children who receive high-frequency/low-dose or low-frequency/high-dose treatments as compared to children who receive high-frequency/high-dose or low-frequency/low-dose treatments.

The investigators will test the hypothesis that for both low-frequency and high-frequency treatments, there is a point at which increases in treatment dose do not correspond to any additional gains in children's vocabulary skills during treatment.

At the close of this four-year study, evidence concerning optimal treatment intensity of a word learning intervention will be instrumental for immediately informing speech-language pathologists in how much vocabulary treatment to prescribe as well as for designing additional clinical trials by our and other research teams.

Conditions

• Language Impairment

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Word Learning Intervention

The word learning intervention uses the 10 commercially available children's books and 6 target vocabulary words from each book that meet common criteria for appropriate vocabulary targets. Children will receive 1-on-1 treatment sessions with a trained, speech-language research assistant. Each week, 2 of 10 storybooks chosen for the study will be read with 3 of 6 targeted vocabulary words targeted from each book. The book and words targeted will be consistent between random assignment conditions. For each book reading, speech-language interns will implement word learning strategies during pre reading, during reading, and post reading. Strategies include providing a definition, a synonym, and a contextual sentence. The number of strategies used will vary on which word is being targeted; all words will be randomly assigned to a particular dose, ranging from 0 (no strategies) to 20 (all of the strategies at each reading).

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Ohio State University

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Texas at Austin

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Mary Beth Schmitt, PhD · The University of Texas at Austin

• Laura Justice, PhD · Ohio State University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

TRIPLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

5 Years

Max Age

8 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2020-08-10

Primary Completion

2025-01-09

Completion

2025-07-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations