Randomized Clinical Trial of Phonological Interventions — ECRIP  

Dyslexia Clinical Trial

Official title: The Contribution of a Speech Perception Intervention to the Prevention of Phonological Awareness Deficits in Children With Speech Sound Disorders

Status Unknown status

Clinical Trial Summary

Recent research reveals genetic and symptomatic overlap among children with speech sound disorders (i.e., those who (misarticulate more sounds than would be expected for their age) and children with dyslexia (i.e., those who struggle to learn to read). Children who have speech sound disorders as preschoolers are at risk for the later emergence of dyslexia, a risk that often reveals itself in the form of poor phonological awareness skills during the preschool period. Traditional speech therapy methods focus on articulation accuracy and do not focus on the child's more abstract knowledge of the sound system of the language. The ultimate objective of this research program is to prevent reading disability in children who present with speech sounds disorders. The relative effectiveness of different interventions to help these children achieve age-appropriate phonological processing skills prior to school entry will be investigated. It is expected that a combination of treatment approaches that focus on speech perception skills and vocabulary knowledge will have a superior impact on phonological awareness in comparison with a treatment approach that focuses solely on articulation accuracy.

Clinical Trial Description

The 72 children participating in the study will be randomly assigned (with concealment of the randomization sequence from study staff) to one of two Child Speech Interventions: Speech Perception or Speech Production. These interventions will be provided in individualized one-hour treatment sessions once per week for six consecutive weeks during the first treatment block. During the second 6 week treatment block all children will receive a group phonological awareness intervention. Concurrently their parents will be randomly assigned to receive instruction in the provision of a home program, either Articulation Therapy or Dialogic Reading. This will result in 4 groups of 18 children with each group receiving one of four combinations of intervention: Speech Production Intervention + Articulation Parent Group; Speech Production Intervention + Dialogic Reading Parent Group; Speech Perception Intervention + Articulation Parent Group; and Speech Perception Intervention + Dialogic Reading Parent Group. Assessments will occur pretreatment, after the first treatment block, after the second treatment block, and 9 months after the end of the second treatment block. ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Articulation Disorders
• Developmental Articulation Disorder
• Disease
• Dyslexia
• Phonological Impairment
• Speech Articulation Disorder
• Speech Sound Disorder

• NCT number: NCT00818428
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: McGill University
• Contact: Francoise Brosseau-Lapre, M.Sc.(A)
• Phone: 514-398-4137
• Email: francoise.brosseau-lapre@mail.mcgill.ca
• Status: Unknown status
• Phase: Phase 2/Phase 3
• Start date: November 2008
• Completion date: July 2010