Reading Intervention to Children With Developmental Language Disorder

NCT05295472 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: 2020-02655
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 67
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

The main purpose of this study is to investigate if the internet-based computer-game Grapholearn (GL) is an effective tool for early and intensive intervention of the reading decoding skills in Swedish children with DLD, as compared to two control groups of children with DLD (I) playing a math computer game, and (II) attending usual schooling. Hypothesis: Five weeks of 20 sessions of GL will improve the accuracy of word and nonword decoding skills in children with DLD from baseline to T2 and T3. The GL intervention group will perform higher number of accuratly decoded words and nonwords than the two control groups at T2, and at T3. The second aim is to elucidate how the parents' language and reading skills, prevalence of language-related diagnoses, and socio-economic-status, and the children's self-reported self-esteem is related to their reading skills. Hypothesis 1: Children with DLD who's parents show poor language and/or reading skills will perform lower on the word/nonword decoding tests. Hypothesis 2: Children who show no significant improvement of word/nonword decoding skills will to a higher degree have parents with reading difficulties. Hypothesis 3: Parents highest level of education will not be associated with the participating childrens language and reading skills. Hypothesis 4: Results from the self-reported self-esteem will be lower than normdata from the test manual, and will not be associated with the children's language and reading skills.

Conditions

Developmental Language Disorder

Keywords

reading intervention

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Change of performance on the Grapholearn-based decoding task (Abrahamsson and Quick, 2015)

  The rate (number) of accurate decoding of words and nonwords measured with lists of real words (n=20), grapholearn-words (n=20) and nonword (n=20) consisting of two-, three-, four-, and five-letter words distributed in three word lists, short words with simple orthographic structure first and long words with complex orthographic structure last.

  At baseline compared to directly after the 5 weeks of intervention.

Secondary Outcomes (2)

• Change of performance on the Letter Namning Task (Frylmark, 1995) based on the Swedish alphabet.

  At baseline compared to directly after the 5 weeks of intervention.

• Change of performace on the Swedish version of TOWRE (Test of Word Reading Efficiency)

  At baseline compared to directly after the 5 weeks of intervention.

Study Arms (3)

Grapholearn group

EXPERIMENTAL

Children with DLD who attend a special school for children with DLD. This group will play the computer game GL in school for 5 weeks, 20 sessions, 15-30 min per session. Supervised by a teacher.

Behavioral: Grapholearn

Math game group

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

Children with DLD who attend a special school for children with DLD. This group will play a computer game focusing on math in school for 5 weeks, 20 sessions, 15-30 min per session. Supervised by a teacher.

Behavioral: Vector

Usual schooling

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

Children with DLD who attend a special school for children with DLD. This children will have normal schooling as usual without playing any of the above computer games.

Behavioral: Usual schooling

Interventions

Grapholearn BEHAVIORAL

GL is a computer game based on the phonics-method (i.e., graphem-phoneme correspondence). It was developed at Jyväskylä University in Finland, in several languages, among others also for Swedish.

Grapholearn group

Vector BEHAVIORAL

A computer game focusing on children's development of mathematic skills

Math game group

Usual schooling BEHAVIORAL

No GL or Math computer games, only the usual schooling

Usual schooling

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 6 Years - 12 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Child (0-17)

You may qualify if:

• DLD diagnoses
• attending a special school for children with DLD
• attending Swedish schoolgrades 0 to 4

You may not qualify if:

• \- non-Swedish speaking

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Karolinska Institutet: lead

Study Sites (1)

Karolinska Institutet

Stockholm, Stockholm County, 117 77, Sweden

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Language Development Disorders

Interventions

Disease Vectors

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Language Disorders; Communication Disorders; Neurobehavioral Manifestations; Neurologic Manifestations; Nervous System Diseases; Signs and Symptoms; Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms

Intervention Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Disease Transmission, Infectious; Public Health; Environment and Public Health; Chain of Infection; Epidemiologic Methods

Study Officials

• Nelli Kalnak, PhD

  Karolinska Institutet

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: INVESTIGATOR
• Purpose: TREATMENT
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Principal Investigator

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: February 28, 2022
• First Posted: March 25, 2022
• Study Start: August 1, 2021
• Primary Completion: June 30, 2023
• Study Completion: June 30, 2023
• Last Updated: December 18, 2025

Record last verified: 2023-12

Locations

SE (1)