The Effect of Prior Learning on Treatment of Morpheme Errors

University of Arizona32 enrolled

Overview

This is a small-scale treatment study designed to determine which teaching methods result in the best learning. Treatment focuses on helping children with a developmental language disorder learn parts of grammar. Preschool children will receive assessments to determine whether they have a developmental language disorder and what parts of grammar they have not mastered. Children will receive one-on-one behavioral treatment over a six week period. Half of the children will be first taught a grammatical form they sometimes use and then one they rarely use. The other half will start with a grammatical form they rarely use. The study seeks to determine whether starting with something children sometimes use correctly (an easier part of speech) will speed later learning of something that is harder for them. The children's ability to use the grammatical forms taught to them will be assessed throughout the treatment period and approximately six weeks after treatment ends.

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

NON_RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Enrollment

Conditions

Developmental Language Disorder

Interventions

The treatment procedure uses 24 treatment doses embedded into child-friendly activities (crafts, book reading, play). Each each consists of a clinician eliciting use of a targeted grammatical form, a child's attempt (correct or incorrect) to use that form, and an immediate clinician repetition of the child's attempt (a recast), correcting any ungrammatical elements as needed. Clinicians must also attempt to gain the child's attention before providing the recast. Treatment sessions are approximately 30 minutes in duration.

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 4 YearsMax age: 6 Years

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * Native English speaking * Passed a pure-tone hearing screening * 4-6 years of age * SPELT-P2 (language) test score of \< 87 * K-ABC-II Nonverbal Scale (cognition) test score of \>75 * Sufficient morpheme errors to serve as treatment and control targets * Articulations skills sufficient to judge use of language targets * Able to attend treatment daily Exclusion Criteria: * Parent report of other handicapping conditions * Clinical signs of other disorders * Enrolled in outside treatment

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Change in the use of treated grammatical forms in untreated contexts

Clinicians elicit ten uses of the trained grammatical form using toys, activities, and vocabulary with-held from treatment sessions. Change is assessed throughout the treatment period.

Time frame: 3 days per week over 6 weeks

Change in the use of grammatical forms in untreated contexts

Clinicians elicit ten uses of the untrained grammatical form using toys, activities, and vocabulary with-held from treatment sessions. Change is assessed throughout the treatment period.

Time frame: 3 days per week over 6 weeks

Retention of trained grammatical forms

Clinicians elicit ten uses of the trained grammatical form using toys, activities, and vocabulary with-held from treatment sessions.

Time frame: One session, approximately 6 weeks after treatment concludes.

Retention of untrained grammatical forms

Clinicians elicit ten uses of the untrained grammatical form using toys, activities, and vocabulary with-held from treatment sessions.

Time frame: One session, approximately 6 weeks after treatment concludes.

Secondary Outcomes

Change in spontaneous use

The number of unprompted use of the trained grammatical form that occurs during treatment sessions. Change is measured relative to baseline.

Time frame: 5 sessions a week over 6 weeks.