Clinical Trial Details
— Status: Recruiting
Administrative data
| NCT number |
NCT05445687 |
| Other study ID # |
0201642 |
| Secondary ID |
|
| Status |
Recruiting |
| Phase |
N/A
|
| First received |
|
| Last updated |
|
| Start date |
April 19, 2022 |
| Est. completion date |
April 19, 2024 |
Study information
| Verified date |
July 2023 |
| Source |
Alexandria University |
| Contact |
Sara M Ibrahim, Master |
| Phone |
+201222866742 |
| Email |
s_ibrahim16[@]alexmed.edu.eg |
| Is FDA regulated |
No |
| Health authority |
|
| Study type |
Interventional
|
Clinical Trial Summary
The importance of narrative skills is evident in their role in language development and their
relation to important academic skills namely reading, comprehension, and writing. Narratives
are also essential for competent social skills, and children with delayed language
development are usually found to have less proficient social communication skills. Research
demonstrates the effects of narrative language intervention on improved narrative structure
and complexity in addition to improved receptive and expressive use of syntax, morphology and
general language use in children with narrative language impairment in various types of
communication disorders. Given the importance of narrative language abilities in language
development and due to lack of research targeting the assessment and intervention of
narrative language skills of Arabic speaking children with language impairments, this study
is dedicated towards the assessment of narrative language in Arabic speaking children and the
development of a comprehensive intervention program targeting narrative language skills and
its application on children with hearing impairment and developmental language disorder.
Description:
A narrative refers to the ability to produce a fictional or real account of temporally
sequenced meaningful occurrences and experiences. Studies have shown that narrative
competence increases with age alongside language, cognitive and social skills. Development of
narrative abilities starts during the preschool years, expands during the school age years,
and continues to develop through adolescence and even adulthood.
Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) are known to have impaired narrative
skills. Narratives of children with DLD are characterized by incomplete episodes, poor
coherence, less expression of cognitive states, less complex sentences with fewer dependent
clauses, and less complex morpho-syntax when compared to their peers.
Research has also shown that hearing impairment is another communication disorder in which
narrative skills are particularly vulnerable. Narratives of children with hearing loss
demonstrate comprehension and production deficits and they have a statistically significant
lower performance in tests assessing narrative structure.
The aim of this work is to develop a narrative language intervention program and to apply it
on children with developmental language disorder and children with hearing impairment to
detect its efficacy on improving their narrative and language skills.
This study will be conducted on 44 children with hearing impairment, and 44 children with
developmental language disorder attending the Unit of Phoniatrics, in the outpatient clinic
of Alexandria Main University hospital. Sample size was calculated to achieve 80% power with
a target significance level at 5% to detect the efficacy of the proposed narrative
intervention program in improvement of narrative language skills of Egyptian children with
hearing impairment and developmental language disorder.
The narrative intervention program will include an introductory section on the elements of
story grammar to introduce the children to narratives and give them explicit instructions
about the concepts of narrative macrostructure. The program will include 24 illustrated story
sequences with a minimum of 5 sequences representing the main story elements: characters and
setting; problems; internal response; actions; and consequence. Story icons will be designed
to represent the main 5 elements to accompany storytelling and act as visual prompts. Each
story will reflect specific content with several target vocabulary words and complex
morphosyntax.
The following procedure will be implemented with each story: Modeling, answering
comprehension questions, retelling with icons and colored illustrations, retelling with icons
only, and retelling without icons.
All subjects meeting the specified inclusion and exclusion criteria will be assessed by the
specified protocol of assessment to evaluate narrative skills, language skills and cognitive
abilities before and after intervention.
The results of this study will be tabulated and analyzed with the use of appropriate
statistical methods and appropriate figures and diagrams.
