Syntactic Intervention for Cantonese-speaking Children With DLD

NCT06954194 | Recruiting

• 2 other identifiers: HSEARS20220505001-0220211061
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 32
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to compare the efficacy of explicit vs. implicit intervention on subject relative clause production in Cantonese-speaking children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). It will also learn about individual difference predictors of intervention outcomes. The main questions it aims to answer are:

• Undergo diagnostic assessments of DLD to confirm their DLD status.
• Complete pre-intervention assessments to assess their procedural learning and working memory capacities.
• Undergo the intervention phase, which consists of a pretest, 10 intervention sessions, three posttests (after the 1st, 5th and 10th intervention), and a retention test (1 month after the last intervention).

Conditions

Developmental Language Disorder

Keywords

Randomized Controlled Trial; Explicit intervention; Implicit intervention; Procedural circuit Deficit Hypothesis; Individual difference; Relative clause; Syntactic priming; Shape coding

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (2)

• Production accuracy

  Production accuracy of the target structure

  From pretest to the retention test (1 month after all 10 intervention sessions are completed)

• Number of successful learners

  The number of successful learners (≥80% accuracy)

  From pretest to the retention test (1 month after all 10 intervention sessions are completed)

Study Arms (2)

Explicit intervention group

EXPERIMENTAL

Participants in this group will receive explicit teaching of the target structure using the Shape Coding scheme adapted to be age- and language (Cantonese)-appropriate, followed by syntactic priming sessions.

Behavioral: Explicit intervention (Shape Coding+syntactic priming)

Implicit intervention group

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

Participants in this arm will receive identical syntactic priming sessions to the explicit intervention group, but without explicit teaching of the target structure using the Shape Coding scheme.

Behavioral: Implicit intervention (syntactic priming only)

Interventions

Explicit intervention (Shape Coding+syntactic priming) BEHAVIORAL

For explicit intervention, a syntactic priming task will be preceded by explicit teaching of the target structure using the Shape Coding scheme adapted to be age- and language (Cantonese)-appropriate. A different set of 10 sentences will be used for teaching in each explicit intervention session, with five sentences used as exemplars for the experimenter to explain the target structure, and the remaining five sentences for children to practice. The syntactic priming session will be presented as a game to sustain the children's interest and to disguise the purpose of the study. Each intervention session will contain 40 pairs of prime-target pictures, 40 pairs of control-target pictures, and 20 pairs of filler pictures, randomly presented to the experimenter and child and controlled by the experimenter. In total, there are 500 doses of SRC-O sentences (50 sentences x10 sessions).

Explicit intervention group

Implicit intervention (syntactic priming only) BEHAVIORAL

For implicit intervention, the same 10 sessions of syntactic priming will be provided to the children without explicit instruction of the SRC-O structure using the Shape Coding System. Nonetheless, to make the exposure and dosage as comparable as possible between the two groups, children in the implicit intervention group will also receive 10 listening sessions before the syntactic priming sessions. During the listening sessions, the same sets of sentences used in the explicit instruction sessions will be presented and the children will be instructed to listen closely as the tutor reads aloud the SRC-O sentence. Each listening session will be followed by a syntactic priming session that is identical to that of the explicit intervention group. In total, there are also 500 doses of SRC-O sentences (50 sentences x10 sessions).

Implicit intervention group

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 5 Years - 8 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Child (0-17)

You may qualify if:

• being Cantonese dominant who learned Cantonese as their first language and attending Cantonese-medium primary schools.
• having normal IQ and no hearing impairment.
• scoring at least -1.25 SD below the mean in any two subtests of the Hong Kong Cantonese Oral Language Assessment Scale (a standardized language assessment tool for Hong Kong Cantonese-speaking children).

You may not qualify if:

• Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• The Hong Kong Polytechnic University: lead

Study Sites (1)

Speech and Language Sciences Laboratory (SLS Lab)

Hong Kong, Hong Kong

RECRUITING

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Language Development Disorders

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

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

Study Officials

• Caicai Zhang, PhD

  The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Central Study Contacts

Tracy Tang

CONTACT

852 34008541; tracy-wh.tang@polyu.edu.hk

Study Design

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

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: April 24, 2025
• First Posted: May 1, 2025
• Study Start: February 10, 2024
• Primary Completion: May 1, 2026
• Study Completion: May 1, 2026
• Last Updated: May 4, 2025

Record last verified: 2025-04

Locations

HK (1)