Dynamic Assessment of the Risk for Language and Reading Disorders in Monolingual and Multilingual Children

NCT06937255 | Recruiting

• 1 other identifier: 1036
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 150
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

The project represents the completion of a part of the recently concluded European project MultiMind, in which a computer platform called MuLiMi was developed and validated. The platform hosts screening tests for the identification of the risk of Language and Learning Disorders in preschool and primary school children, respectively. The aim is to validate the Dynamic Assessment (DA) tests (a first test assessing the capacity to learn new words for preschool children and a second one assessing the capacity to learn a new spelling code for school-age children) in a population of monolingual and bilingual children attending preschool and primary school. The main goal of the study is to complete the validation of the two Dynamic Assessment tests implemented in the MuLiMi platform developed for the MultiMind project.

Conditions

Developmental Dyslexia; Developmental Language Disorder

Keywords

Developmental Dyslexia; Developmental Language Disorder; Dynamic Assessment; computerized assessment; multilingual population; children

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (2)

• accuracy during task performance

  total number and % correct answers, number and % errors during task performance

  one or two days (one or two consecutive sessions depending on participant's age, collaboration and fatigue)

• efficiency during task performance

  number of repeated cycles, number of cycles needed to reach target performance

  Intervention occurs during assessment: assessment will last one or two days (one or two consecutive sessions depending on participant's age, collaboration and fatigue)

Study Arms (8)

TD preschooler, monolingual

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

This group will include monolingual children who have not been referred to clinical or educational services for any delay or disorder in language abilities. They will be tested with the MuLiMi battery (lexical, phonological and morphosyntactic tests), including the DA Novel Word Learning Test (NWLT) as DA screening test. Furthermore, they will be assessed with standardized language tests providing benchmark measures for validation.

Diagnostic Test: computerized Dynamic Assessment

TD preschooler, multilingual

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

This group will include multilingual children who have not been referred to clinical or educational services for any delay or disorder in language abilities. They will be tested with the MuLiMi battery (lexical, phonological and morphosyntactic tests), including the DA Novel Word Learning Test (NWLT) as DA screening test. Furthermore, they will be assessed with standardized language tests providing benchmark measures for validation.

Diagnostic Test: computerized Dynamic Assessment

DLD preschooler, monolingual

EXPERIMENTAL

This group will include monolingual children who have been referred to clinical or educational services because of delays or disorders in language abilities. They will be tested with the MuLiMi battery (lexical, phonological and morphosyntactic tests), including the DA Novel Word Learning Test (NWLT) as DA screening test. Furthermore, they will be assessed with standardized language tests providing benchmark measures for validation.

Diagnostic Test: computerized Dynamic Assessment

DLD preschooler, multilingual

EXPERIMENTAL

This group will include multilingual children who have been referred to clinical or educational services because of delays or disorders in language abilities. They will be tested with the MuLiMi battery (lexical, phonological and morphosyntactic tests), including the DA Novel Word Learning Test (NWLT) as DA screening test. Furthermore, they will be assessed with standardized language tests providing benchmark measures for validation.

Diagnostic Test: computerized Dynamic Assessment

TD school-age, monolingual

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

This group will include monolingual children who have not been referred to clinical or educational services for any delay or disorder in language abilities. They will be tested with the MuLiMi battery (reading, orthographic and metaphonological tests), including the Dynamic Reading Assessment (DRA) as DA screening test. Furthermore, they will be assessed with standardized reading and language tests providing benchmark measures for validation.

Diagnostic Test: computerized Dynamic Assessment

TD school-age, multilingual

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

This group will include monolingual children who have not been referred to clinical or educational services for any delay or disorder in language abilities. They will be tested with the MuLiMi battery (reading, orthographic and metaphonological tests), including the Dynamic Reading Assessment (DRA) as DA screening test. Furthermore, they will be assessed with standardized reading and language tests providing benchmark measures for validation.

Diagnostic Test: computerized Dynamic Assessment

SRD school-age, monolingual

EXPERIMENTAL

This group will include monolingual children who have been referred to clinical or educational services for any delay or disorder in language abilities. They will be tested with the MuLiMi battery (reading, orthographic and metaphonological tests), including the Dynamic Reading Assessment (DRA) as DA screening test. Furthermore, they will be assessed with standardized reading and language tests providing benchmark measures for validation.

Diagnostic Test: computerized Dynamic Assessment

SRD school-age, multilingual

EXPERIMENTAL

This group will include multilingual children who have been referred to clinical or educational services for any delay or disorder in language abilities. They will be tested with the MuLiMi battery (reading, orthographic and metaphonological tests), including the Dynamic Reading Assessment (DRA) as DA screening test. Furthermore, they will be assessed with standardized reading and language tests providing benchmark measures for validation.

Diagnostic Test: computerized Dynamic Assessment

Interventions

computerized Dynamic Assessment DIAGNOSTIC_TEST

The DA tests (with a duration of about 30 minutes) can be administered by accessing the digital platform MuLiMi, individually with the experimenter or examiner. The tests are in game form and require children to learn the names of characters presented in the context of stories (preschool version) or to learn new codes for reading and writing (primary school version). In both cases, the new materials (names or codes) are repeatedly presented to the child until (s)he reaches an accuracy threshold. The number of repetitions needed to reach the threshold constitutes the main measure of the child's learning capacity, together with the number of errors committed during the various cycles.

Also known as: MuLiMi Dynamic Assessment tools

DLD preschooler, monolingual; DLD preschooler, multilingual; SRD school-age, monolingual; SRD school-age, multilingual; TD preschooler, monolingual; TD preschooler, multilingual; TD school-age, monolingual; TD school-age, multilingual

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 4 Years - 9 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Child (0-17)

You may qualify if:

• age 4-6 years (Kindergarten) or 7-9 years (Primary school);
• Attendance at an Italian-language school in Italy or Switzerland/Germany.
• (i) At least one parent speaks at least one language other than Italian in the family;
• (ii) Continuous exposure to the Italian language for at least two years.

You may not qualify if:

• Intellectual disability, major psychopathological disorders, exposure to Italian language for less than two years.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• IRCCS Eugenio Medea: lead

Study Sites (1)

IRCCS E. Medea, polo di Bosisio Parini

Bosisio Parini, LC, 23842, Italy

RECRUITING

Related Publications (3)

• MacLeod AAN, Glaspey AM. Dynamic assessment of multilingual children's word learning. Int J Lang Commun Disord. 2022 Jul;57(4):822-851. doi: 10.1111/1460-6984.12723. Epub 2022 Apr 16.

  PMID: 35429340 BACKGROUND

• Orellana CI, Wada R, Gillam RB. The Use of Dynamic Assessment for the Diagnosis of Language Disorders in Bilingual Children: A Meta-Analysis. Am J Speech Lang Pathol. 2019 Aug 9;28(3):1298-1317. doi: 10.1044/2019_AJSLP-18-0202. Epub 2019 Jun 13.

  PMID: 31194570 BACKGROUND

• Hunt E, Nang C, Meldrum S, Armstrong E. Can Dynamic Assessment Identify Language Disorder in Multilingual Children? Clinical Applications From a Systematic Review. Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch. 2022 Apr 11;53(2):598-625. doi: 10.1044/2021_LSHSS-21-00094. Epub 2022 Mar 1.

  PMID: 35230888 BACKGROUND

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Dyslexia; Language Development Disorders

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Language Disorders; Communication Disorders; Neurobehavioral Manifestations; Neurologic Manifestations; Nervous System Diseases; Specific Learning Disorder; Learning Disabilities; Signs and Symptoms; Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms; Neurodevelopmental Disorders; Mental Disorders

Study Officials

• Maria Luisa Lorusso, Ph.D

  IRCCS E. Medea

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Central Study Contacts

Maria Luisa Lorusso, Ph.D

CONTACT

031-877592; marialuisa.lorusso@lanostrafamiglia.it

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NON RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: SCREENING
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Model Details: The study will compare performance in a parallel manner in two populations: preschool and school-age children. Preschool age children will be assessed with the DA screening test for the risk of DLD, whereas school-age children will be assessed with the DA screening test for the risk of SRD. Each of the two groups will be subdivided into 2 groups: typically developing (TD) and atypically developing (AD). Each of the 2 groups will be further subdivided into monolingual and multilingual children. Pairwise comparisons will be performed to assess the capacity of the DA screening tools to discriminate AD from TD children, separately for monolingual and multilingual children.

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: March 21, 2024
• First Posted: April 22, 2025
• Study Start: April 3, 2023
• Primary Completion: December 1, 2025
• Study Completion: December 1, 2025
• Last Updated: May 4, 2025

Record last verified: 2025-04

Locations

IT (1)