Sentence Shaping - DHH

Vanderbilt University30 enrolled

Overview

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.

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Enrollment

Conditions

Hearing Loss, Bilateral

Interventions

Shape CodingBEHAVIORAL

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.

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 9 YearsMax age: 15 Years

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * Children in grades five through eight * deaf or hard of hearing * use spoken English and American Sign Language (ASL) * bilateral hearing loss * the ability to read and understand the grammatical structures of interest * already be writing sentences, but demonstrate errors in word order and/or grammar. Exclusion Criteria: * diagnosis of dyslexia * uncorrected vision impairment (i.e., identified vision loss without use of corrective lenses that interferes with eligibility evaluation tasks) * evidence of severe motor impairment (i.e., insufficient motor skills to complete eligibility evaluation tasks independently).

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Proportion of children for whom the intervention is successful

The investigators will calculate the proportion of children for whom the intervention is successful, defined as at least 80% accuracy for 3 consecutive data collection days.

Time frame: Baseline to up to 8 weeks maximum

Secondary Outcomes

Proportion of children that generalize targeted skill to unpracticed words within targeted structure

The investigators will calculate the proportion of children that generalize the targeted skill to novel/unpracticed words within the targeted structure.

Time frame: Baseline to up to 8 weeks maximum

Proportion of children that generalize targeted skill to unpracticed modality within targeted structure

The investigators will calculate the proportion of children that generalize the targeted skill to an unpracticed modality (i.e., writing, typing) using practiced words within the targeted structure.

Time frame: Baseline to up to 8 weeks maximum.

Proportion of children that maintain targeted skill after intervention has ended

The investigators will calculate the proportion of children that maintain higher percent accuracy after intervention is removed compared to baseline

Time frame: Begins no more than 2 weeks after intervention phase ends; lasts up to 3 weeks