Emergent Bilinguals: Child Language Proficiency and Language of Treatment

Официальное название

Emergent Bilinguals: the Relationship Between Child Language Proficiency and Language of Treatment on the Outcomes Children with Developmental Language Disorder

Обзор

Of the 12 million children in the USA growing up bilingual, about 1 million experience Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), a disorder in language learning and use. Currently there is no guidance for speech language pathologists (SLPs) as to the language of intervention for emergent Spanish-English bilingual children with DLD. This project will examine the relationship between language proficiency and the language of intervention, considering monolingual intervention (Spanish or English) and interleaved Spanish-English intervention with the goal of improving language outcomes and thereby strengthening long-term academic achievement

Подробное описание

More than 8.5 million children in the USA speak Spanish at home (U.S. Census Table S1601, 2020) with about a half million experiencing Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), a disorder in language learning and use not attributed to limited language exposure, autism, intellectual disability, etc. (Norbury et al., 2016). Bilingual children with DLD experience language-learning difficulties in both languages, including documented difficulty with complex syntax (Gutiérrez-Clellen, 1998; Jasso et al., under review). While it is self-evident that a monolingual child should be treated in their first language, currently there is no guidance for speech-language pathologists as to the language of intervention for bilingual children (Kohnert, et al., 2005). This is exacerbated by the fact that DLD varies in severity and bilingualism exists across a continuum, ranging from nearly monolingual in either language A or B to balanced bilingualism with good fluency in both languages. Furthermore, children who enter school with only limited proficiency in the majority language (e.g., English) rapidly become more proficient. This continuum is exemplified in our data. Recast therapy, an evidence-based intervention for grammatical difficulties (Cleave et al., 2015), is thought to work via mechanisms similar to priming (Leonard, 2011). Critically, cross-linguistic priming in bilingual children depends on proficiency (Vasilyeva et al., 2010) suggesting a need to align recast therapy with the child's proficiency profile (Gutiérrez-Clellen et al., 2012).

Вмешательства

• Поведенческое Sentence recast
  Recast therapy is a well-established treatment for grammar in children with DLD. In this treatment, the adult repeats the child's own utterance, altering it to include the taught structure. It yields consistent large effect sizes (Hedge's g = 0.7-1.0) when focused on a single target and provided at a high dose (10-20 hrs. of therapy at a rate of \~1 recast/minute or \~600-1000 recasts total) for both morphology and syntax

Первичные конечные точки

• Accuracy on elicited production probes (conditional or nominal) [Срок оценки: ~1 month before (Pre), 2 weeks before second structure (Mid) and 2 weeks after treatment (Post test)]]

Вторичные конечные точки (1)

• Mean Length of Utterance and Subordination Index in English [Срок оценки: ~1 month before (Pre), 2 weeks before second structure (Mid) and 2 weeks after treatment (Post test)]]

Критерии участия

Критерии включения

• parent concerns and/or a history of receiving services in the public schools
• age-specific cutoffs for the morphosyntax subtests for their best language (English or Spanish) on the Bilingual English Spanish Assessment. The cut-off score for best language for 4-year-olds is 84, for 5-year-olds is 85, and for 6-year-olds is 81.

Using the best-language approach, these scores have a sensitivity over 90% and specificity over 80% for children between 4;0 and 6;11 years of age , which is considered acceptable for studies of diagnostic accuracy.

• nonverbal IQ, as measured by the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test-2, matrices subtest, will be at or above a standard score of 70.
• pass a hearing screening test
• participants must be emergent bilingual, that is children must be producing at least simple sentences in spontaneous speech in either Spanish or English and be exposed to both langauges
• participants must be able to benefit from treatment for both conditional adverbial clauses and complement clauses, as evidenced by accuracy below 40% on 10-item elicited production probes in both languages

Критерии исключения

1\) children with significant sensory-motor concerns or psychiatric disorders per parent report will not be enrolled.

Критерии приведены из реестра в оригинале (на английском). Окончательную оценку соответствия проводит исследовательский центр.

Здоровые добровольцы: Да

Дизайн исследования

Распределение

Рандомизированное

Модель

Перекрёстный дизайн

Маскирование

Простое слепое

Основная цель

Лечение

Центры проведения

США · 1 центр

• University of Houston — Houston

Идентификаторы

NCT: NCT06866223 · 5R01DC020183 · STUDY00002073

Первоисточники (государственные реестры)

• ClinicalTrials.gov (NIH, США)

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