Developmental Language DisorderNCT06085300
The Relationship Between Child Language Proficiency and Language of Treatment on the Outcomes of Bilingual Children with Developmental Language Disorder
A study testing Sentence recast in people with Developmental Language Disorder and Language Impairment, run by University of Houston at 1 site in United States.
Trial summary
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 bilingual children with DLD with differing… Read more about this study
- Who is it for?
- Ages 4 to 6 yearsHealthy volunteers can take part
- Conditions the study is for
- Developmental Language Disorder, Language Impairment
- What is being tested?
- Sentence recast
- Type of treatment
- Lifestyle or therapy programme
- Could I receive a placebo?
- No, everyone receives an active treatment
- How many people
- 120 participants
- Where
- 1 siteUnited States
- Study dates
- 8 Aug 2023to 1 May 2028
- Phase
- Interventional
- Are there results?
- Not yet: the study is under way
Key requirements
Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.
- Ages 4 to 6 years
- All sexes
- Healthy volunteers accepted
- Child
Who may be able to join
- 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 bilingual, that is children must be producing at least simple sentences in spontaneous speech in both Spanish and English, or understand English and Spanish.
- 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
Who cannot join
- 1) children with significant sensory-motor concerns or psychiatric disorders per parent report will not be enrolled.
Trial locations and contacts
1 site in 1 country. Contact the study team or a site near you to ask about taking part.
Paula Nino Kher contact
United States1 site, 1 recruiting
- Recruiting
School Districst
Houston, Texas, 77204
About this study
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 bilingual children with DLD with differing degrees of proficiency with English or Spanish. This project will examine the relationship between relative language proficiency and the language of intervention, considering monolingual intervention in English and Spanish and bilingual intervention presented by alternating English and Spanish treatment sessions with the goal of improving language outcomes and thereby strengthening long-term academic achievement.
Read the detailed description
More than 8.5 million children in the USA speak Spanish at home with about a half million experiencing Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), a disorder in language learning and use that cannot be attributed to limited language exposure, autism, intellectual disability, hearing impairment, etc. One key challenge in serving bilingual children with DLD is the mismatch between the language(s) they speak and the availability of Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs) who can provide services in those languages. While it seems self-evident that a monolingual child should be treated in their first language, currently there is no guidance for SLPs as to the language of intervention for bilingual children. Hence, a critical question is what language(s) of treatment will best serve children with DLD with different proficiency profiles in their development of both Spanish and English. The first question is whether gains in the treated language(s) are influenced by the child's proficiency in each language (Aim 1). Cross-linguistic transfer has been documented in priming studies suggesting that underlying syntax representations are interconnected. Transfer effects may make it possible for a child to improve in both languages as a result of treatment in one language, provided that the child has adequate levels of knowledge to connect the information provided in treatment across both languages. The clearest evidence of transfer can be derived from assessing gains in the untreated language when treatment is presented monolingually (Aim 2). Our own preliminary data suggest that recast therapy can result in gains in both English and Spanish for children treated in just one language. In this study, the investigators carry out a randomized controlled trial, enrolling 120 children with DLD between the ages of 4 and 6 who score below 40% correct on the use of conditional adverbial clauses (if-then) and Complement clauses (e.g., he wonders who will be there…). Children receive one of three possible treatments (English-only, Spanish-only, bilingual) for one grammatical structure for 9 weeks, and then outcomes are re-assessed for both structures in both languages. The second grammatical structure is then treated for 9 weeks, and outcomes are assessed a third time. Comparison of different treatment approaches will inform our understanding of what is the best approach to therapy for bilingual children with a particular proficiency profile. Comparison of gains across languages and targets will allow us to determine the role of cross-linguistic transfer in language learning and to inform theoretical accounts of language representation in the developing bilingual child.
- Being tested
- Sentence recast
- Keywords
- developmental language disorder, bilingual children, sentence recast, Bilingual proficiency, Language transfer
- Medical subject headings
- Language Development Disorders, Language Disorders
What participants receive
What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.
Sentence recastBehavioural
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 .
| Study group | Role | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| sentence recast in Spanish only | Experimental | A trained, bilingual SLP will treat the targeted structure at a rate of ~ 1 recast per minute, for 16 hours spread over 9 weeks to obtain a planned dose of 912-1008 recasts (960 +/- 5%). Following evidence on enhanced conversational recasting, the SLP will obtain the child's attention before recasting and systematically vary the lexical items in the recasts. Children receiving monolingual Spanish therapy will have the entire treatment session conducted in Spanish. Receives: Behavioral: Sentence recast |
| sentence recast in English only | Experimental | A trained, bilingual SLP will treat the targeted structure at a rate of ~ 1 recast per minute, for 16 hours spread over 9 weeks to obtain a planned dose of 912-1008 recasts (960 +/- 5%). Following evidence on enhanced conversational recasting , the SLP will obtain the child's attention before recasting and systematically vary the lexical items in the recasts. Children receiving monolingual English therapy will have the entire treatment session conducted in English. Receives: Behavioral: Sentence recast |
| sentence recast - Bilingual (Spanish+English) intervention | Experimental | Treatment will differ from monolingual therapy in that the child will be seen by two SLPs in keeping with one-person one-language models. This allows us to ensure that the dose in each language is controlled and supports the use of both languages evenly in therapy. Sessions will alternate between English-only therapy and Spanish-only therapy - thus the child will receive 8 hours of therapy treating the selected target in English and 8 hours treating the selected target in Spanish. A child in bilingual therapy will receive approximately 456-504 (480 +/- 5%) recasts in each language for a total of 912-1008 recasts combined. Receives: Behavioral: Sentence recast |
What is being measured
The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.
Accuracy on elicited production probes (conditional or nominal)
Accuracy on elicited production probes are the primary outcome measure. There are 40 probes in total. Ten for Spanish conditionals, ten English conditionals, ten Spanish complement clauses and ten English complement clauses.
Measured: ~1 month before (Pre), 2 weeks before second structure (Mid) and 2 weeks after treatment (Post test)
Secondary outcomes (1)
Number of target structure (conditional or nominal) produced during a story retell task
Language samples serve as a means to assess functional change. Narratives are more likely than conversation to elicit complex syntactic forms while still being appropriate for this age range. Children will provide one story retell in each language before, at midpoint, and after treatment. Frog books from Mercer Meyer with story-retell scripts developed for this study will be used. The investigators will obtain the number of target utterances used in each language.
Measured: ~1 month before (Pre), 2 weeks before second structure (Mid) and 2 weeks after treatment (Post test)
Timeline
From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.
- First posted16 Oct 2023
- Study start8 Aug 2023
- Primary completion1 May 2028 (estimated)
- Study completion1 May 2028 (estimated)
Resources
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govThe registry entry this page is built from, with its full change history.
- Other trials for Developmental Language DisorderStudies of the same condition, open and under way.
- What the trial phases meanHow a treatment moves from first tests in people to approval.
More details
For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.
Study design
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase N/A
- Primary purpose
- Treatment
- Allocation
- Randomised
- Intervention model
- Crossover
- Model description
- Participants will be randomly assigned to one of three conditions: monolingual recast therapy delivered in English, monolingual recast therapy delivered in Spanish, or bilingual therapy (Spanish+English). Schools are randomly assigned to first treatment target (conditional adverbial clause; complement clause). The investigators use a cross-over design such that all children eventually receive treatment for all targets. Pretesting will be completed for both targets in both languages. Children will be stratified based on bilingual proficiency (Spanish-dominant (receptive English or simple sentences in English), English-dominant, Balanced) and randomly assigned to language of intervention. Children will receive 16 hours of recast therapy. After, both structures will be tested in both languages again. Then, treatment target will switch and children will receive an additional 16 hours of treatment for the second structure. At post-test, both structures will be tested in both languages.
- Masking
- Single blind
- Who is masked
- Outcomes assessor
- Enrolment
- 120 participants (estimated)
Sponsor and investigators
- Lead sponsor
- University of Houston
- Sponsor type
- University, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), University of Delaware
- Responsible party
- Sponsor
IDs, dates and publications
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT06085300
- Sponsor's protocol ID
- STUDY00002073
- Other IDs
- R01DC020183
- Status last verified
- Jan 2025
- First submitted
- 5 Oct 2023
- Last updated
- 14 Jan 2025
- Results posted
- No
- Data monitoring committee
- No
- FDA-regulated drug
- No
- FDA-regulated device
- No
- Individual data sharing
- Yes: General summary data and individual-level data will be shared for the following variables: Age, parent education level, scores on standardized tests associated with eligibility and relative language proficiency, percent correct on pre-/mid-/post-test elicited production probes, and summary variables for language sample data (e.g., number of target utterances). This information will be made available in the form of a comma delimited text file and a code book. Individuals' identities by redacting birthdates and date of examination from the available records will be disguised by replacing names with coded alphanumeric values. Materials (books, probes, training tips, training videos, etc.) will be available to SLPs and other researchers upon request. Audio files cannot be fully deidentified; therefore, data at the child level will only be available with IRB approval.
Study at a glance
From the registry record, last updated by the sponsor on 14 Jan 2025. Recruitment status is as the sponsor reported it: confirm with the study team.
- Official title
- The Relationship Between Child Language Proficiency and Language of Treatment on the Outcomes of Bilingual Children with Developmental Language Disorder
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT06085300
- Acronym / sponsor ID
- STUDY00002073
- Keywords
- developmental language disorder, bilingual children, sentence recast, Bilingual proficiency, Language transfer
- Study type
- Interventional
- Recruitment status
- Recruiting
- Enrolment
- 120 participants (estimated)
- Lead sponsor
- University of HoustonUniversity, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), University of Delaware
- Study start
- 8 Aug 2023 (actual)
- Primary completion
- 1 May 2028 (estimated)
- Study completion
- 1 May 2028 (estimated)
- First posted
- 16 Oct 2023 (actual)
- Results
- Not posted in the source record
Clinical summary
The research question as the sponsor registered it. This describes what the study plans to test, not what it found.
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 bilingual children with DLD with differing degrees of proficiency with English or Spanish. This project will examine the relationship between relative language proficiency and the language of intervention, considering monolingual intervention in English and Spanish and bilingual intervention presented by alternating English and Spanish treatment sessions with the goal of improving language outcomes and thereby strengthening long-term academic achievement.
Detailed description
More than 8.5 million children in the USA speak Spanish at home with about a half million experiencing Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), a disorder in language learning and use that cannot be attributed to limited language exposure, autism, intellectual disability, hearing impairment, etc. One key challenge in serving bilingual children with DLD is the mismatch between the language(s) they speak and the availability of Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs) who can provide services in those languages. While it seems self-evident that a monolingual child should be treated in their first language, currently there is no guidance for SLPs as to the language of intervention for bilingual children. Hence, a critical question is what language(s) of treatment will best serve children with DLD with different proficiency profiles in their development of both Spanish and English. The first question is whether gains in the treated language(s) are influenced by the child's proficiency in each language (Aim 1). Cross-linguistic transfer has been documented in priming studies suggesting that underlying syntax representations are interconnected. Transfer effects may make it possible for a child to improve in both languages as a result of treatment in one language, provided that the child has adequate levels of knowledge to connect the information provided in treatment across both languages. The clearest evidence of transfer can be derived from assessing gains in the untreated language when treatment is presented monolingually (Aim 2). Our own preliminary data suggest that recast therapy can result in gains in both English and Spanish for children treated in just one language. In this study, the investigators carry out a randomized controlled trial, enrolling 120 children with DLD between the ages of 4 and 6 who score below 40% correct on the use of conditional adverbial clauses (if-then) and Complement clauses (e.g., he wonders who will be there…). Children receive one of three possible treatments (English-only, Spanish-only, bilingual) for one grammatical structure for 9 weeks, and then outcomes are re-assessed for both structures in both languages. The second grammatical structure is then treated for 9 weeks, and outcomes are assessed a third time. Comparison of different treatment approaches will inform our understanding of what is the best approach to therapy for bilingual children with a particular proficiency profile. Comparison of gains across languages and targets will allow us to determine the role of cross-linguistic transfer in language learning and to inform theoretical accounts of language representation in the developing bilingual child.
Study design
- Primary purpose
- Treatment
- Allocation
- Randomised
- Intervention model
- Crossover
- Masking
- Single blind (outcomes assessor)
- Number of arms
- 3
- Model description
- Participants will be randomly assigned to one of three conditions: monolingual recast therapy delivered in English, monolingual recast therapy delivered in Spanish, or bilingual therapy (Spanish+English). Schools are randomly assigned to first treatment target (conditional adverbial clause; complement clause). The investigators use a cross-over design such that all children eventually receive treatment for all targets. Pretesting will be completed for both targets in both languages. Children will be stratified based on bilingual proficiency (Spanish-dominant (receptive English or simple sentences in English), English-dominant, Balanced) and randomly assigned to language of intervention. Children will receive 16 hours of recast therapy. After, both structures will be tested in both languages again. Then, treatment target will switch and children will receive an additional 16 hours of treatment for the second structure. At post-test, both structures will be tested in both languages.
| Arm | Type | Receives |
|---|---|---|
| sentence recast in Spanish only | Experimental | Behavioral: Sentence recastA trained, bilingual SLP will treat the targeted structure at a rate of ~ 1 recast per minute, for 16 hours spread over 9 weeks to obtain a planned dose of 912-1008 recasts (960 +/- 5%). Following evidence on enhanced conversational recasting, the SLP will obtain the child's attention before recasting and systematically vary the lexical items in the recasts. Children receiving monolingual Spanish therapy will have the entire treatment session conducted in Spanish. |
| sentence recast in English only | Experimental | Behavioral: Sentence recastA trained, bilingual SLP will treat the targeted structure at a rate of ~ 1 recast per minute, for 16 hours spread over 9 weeks to obtain a planned dose of 912-1008 recasts (960 +/- 5%). Following evidence on enhanced conversational recasting , the SLP will obtain the child's attention before recasting and systematically vary the lexical items in the recasts. Children receiving monolingual English therapy will have the entire treatment session conducted in English. |
| sentence recast - Bilingual (Spanish+English) intervention | Experimental | Behavioral: Sentence recastTreatment will differ from monolingual therapy in that the child will be seen by two SLPs in keeping with one-person one-language models. This allows us to ensure that the dose in each language is controlled and supports the use of both languages evenly in therapy. Sessions will alternate between English-only therapy and Spanish-only therapy - thus the child will receive 8 hours of therapy treating the selected target in English and 8 hours treating the selected target in Spanish. A child in bilingual therapy will receive approximately 456-504 (480 +/- 5%) recasts in each language for a total of 912-1008 recasts combined. |
Who may qualify
- Ages
- 4 to 6 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepted
- Age groups
- Child
Key inclusion criteria (6 listed)
- 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 bilingual, that is children must be producing at least simple sentences in spontaneous speech in both Spanish and English, or understand English and Spanish.
Key exclusion criteria (1 listed)
- 1) children with significant sensory-motor concerns or psychiatric disorders per parent report will not be enrolled.
Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening; this overview does not establish that a patient qualifies. Full inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Interventions
| Intervention | Type | Arms |
|---|---|---|
| Sentence recastRecast 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 . | Behavioural | sentence recast - Bilingual (Spanish+English) intervention, sentence recast in English only, sentence recast in Spanish only |
Primary outcome
Accuracy on elicited production probes (conditional or nominal)
Time frame: ~1 month before (Pre), 2 weeks before second structure (Mid) and 2 weeks after treatment (Post test)
Accuracy on elicited production probes are the primary outcome measure. There are 40 probes in total. Ten for Spanish conditionals, ten English conditionals, ten Spanish complement clauses and ten English complement clauses.
1 secondary outcome
Number of target structure (conditional or nominal) produced during a story retell task
Time frame: ~1 month before (Pre), 2 weeks before second structure (Mid) and 2 weeks after treatment (Post test)
Results and safety
This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.
Research links
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govLast updated by the sponsor 14 Jan 2025.
- Individual participant dataSharing planned: Yes. General summary data and individual-level data will be shared for the following variables: Age, parent education level, scores on standardized tests associated with eligibility and relative language proficiency, percent correct on pre-/mid-/post-test elicited production probes, and summary variables for language sample data (e.g., number of target utterances). This information will be made available in the form of a comma delimited text file and a code book. Individuals' identities by redacting birthdates and date of examination from the available records will be disguised by replacing names with coded alphanumeric values. Materials (books, probes, training tips, training videos, etc.) will be available to SLPs and other researchers upon request. Audio files cannot be fully deidentified; therefore, data at the child level will only be available with IRB approval.
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Referral and contact
AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals. Contact the study team or a site listed below; they decide who can take part.
Paula Nino Kher contact
1 site in 1 country: see every site and its status.
Questions about this trial
What is this clinical trial studying?
A study testing Sentence recast in people with Developmental Language Disorder and Language Impairment, run by University of Houston at 1 site in United States.
The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.
Who may be eligible to take part?
The sponsor lists 6 inclusion and 1 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.
Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?
The record says: looking for participants now, as of the sponsor's last update on 14 Jan 2025. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.
Where is the study taking place?
The record lists 1 site in United States. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.
What are the possible benefits and risks?
They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.
Are results available for this study?
This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.
How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?
Contact Anny Castilla-Earls (713-743-0488, annycastilla@uh.edu), or a site near the patient. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.
What does the primary outcome measure?
Accuracy on elicited production probes (conditional or nominal) (time frame: ~1 month before (Pre), 2 weeks before second structure (Mid) and 2 weeks after treatment (Post test)). It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.
Where can I read the original study information?
Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?
No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.
How often is this information updated?
AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 14 Jan 2025; AzTrials last refreshed its copy on 7 Nov 2026.