Active clinical trials for "Language Disorders"

For most children, language acquisition might appear like an effortless phenomenon, mostly arising from informal daily interaction with their surrounding people. Despite an adequate learning environment however, some children encounter major difficulties in learning their native tongue and develop a Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). Although the existence of a multi-factorial etiology has seemed to reach an agreement, presumably combining genetic and environmental factors to some kind of neural disruption, the underlying mechanisms leading to DLD are, to date, poorly understood. Many studies have attempted to identify risk factors and early predictors associated with the future development of a language impairment. However, despite the constant efforts to identify early markers able to differentiate between transient and persistent language difficulties, early detection of children who will be developing a DLD remains highly difficult, partially due to the lack of direct and ecological measures of early language and communication development. In addition research on the causal neural correlates of DLD is in its infancy, and often compromised by small sample sizes or analyses methods that lack anatomical specificity to determine the neural correlates of language impairment. Hence, In order to improve early detection and, therefore, language intervention, this longitudinal research project aims at investigating the early predictive factors as well as the neurocognitive basis of DLD by means of an integrative, multi-dimensional, and multi-methodological approach. To substantially gain insight, this research ideally integrates risk factors at multiple different levels, including the cognitive, neurobiological, parental and environmental level. From a methodological perspective, we will combine direct and indirect behavioral methods with neuroimaging methods in order to propose an early predictive model of language development.

Many children have developmental language disorder, which makes it difficulty to learn language, including vocabulary, and results in ongoing academic and social difficulties. Despite the fact that most words are learned in context without direct teaching, we know very little about how children with developmental language disorder learn words in context. This project will combine, for the first time, two strategies which improve contextual word learning in children with typical development, and test their effect in both typically developing children, and those with developmental language disorder. The results will provide timely information that will contribute to evidence based practice for contextual word learning in children with developmental language disorder.

The sophisticated language of science can be a barrier to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) learning, especially for children who have specific language impairment (SLI). The purpose of this randomized controlled trial is to test vocabulary and grammar interventions embedded in a small-group inquiry-based science instruction for their potential to ameliorate language deficits that impede science learning. Participants will be 54 preschoolers or kindergartners with SLI. Proximal and distal probes will reveal their mastery of taught and generalized language and science concepts.

Patients with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have communicational difficulties to adapt their language to context and to interlocutors. These difficulties have long term impacts on education and social life of these patients. Speech language therapists (SLT) helps child and teenagers with pragmatic and communicational disorders. Nevertheless, few research evaluated the efficacy of such interventions. In the present research, the students will do a literature review to identify efficacy intervention's strategies of pragmatic disorders. Then, 2 to 5 patients, aged from 8 to 14 years old, with ASD or DLD and pragmatic disorders, and who haven't intellectual disorder will be recruited. They will come to the faculty of psychology of UCLouvain before the beginning of the intervention. In this pretest session, parents will answer questionnaires et children will have tests in order to evaluate their pragmatic abilities (during 30 minutes), like conversations, role plays, communication referential tasks, etc. This evaluation will be video recorded to code pragmatic abilities. Then, a group intervention of ten sessions will be proposed (1 session per week, 10 weeks). Activities will include role plays, conversations, etc. At the end of the intervention period, a post test session, like the pretest session, will be proposed to evaluate intervention efficacy. The design is multiple study cases. This is the best design to control efficacy of these kind of interventions considering the inter-individual variability of DLD and ASD patients. This study is original since few research evaluated the efficiency of pragmatic intervention. Some studies demonstrated the efficacy of pragmatic intervention in DLD and ASD patients but theses researches were conducted in English-speaking countries. Furthermore, the present research will propose a group intervention, which weren't proposed in the literature to our knowledge (individual intervention). If the group intervention is efficacy, the cost-benefice ratio would be interested.

Among the objective non-invasive audiological explorations the distorsion products of otoacoustic emissions (DPOAE) allow to quickly assess the function of the cochlear outer hair cells (without the active participation of the subject). This technique is used in newborn screening. While humans are able to perceive sounds in a frequency range of 20Hz to 20kHz, routine clinical audiological assessment is only concerned with frequencies between 1-4kHz. This obscures the importance of high frequencies (HF) which can be easily assessed by DPOAEs. In young children, the perception of these high frequencies could also play an important role in language acquisition. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the relationship between subtle high-frequency hearing impairment, as assessed by the DPOAE (non-invasive, rapid and simple audiological test), and language delay or difficulties in a pre-, peri- and school-age pediatric population.

This research concerns the study of language disorders of patients present in the spectrum of psychosis. It is indeed accepted that psychotic disorders are associated with language difficulties, which are only poorly highlighted thanks to reusable tools in clinical practice. These language disorders impact communication, and concern many linguistic domains, thus covering phonology, lexicon, semantics, morphosyntax and pragmatics. It therefore seems relevant to characterize these language disorders and to assess to what extent they interact with the other symptoms of the pathology, in particular the course of the thought disorder and the neuropsychological symptoms. In addition, this study is particularly interested in the interactions between working memory capacities and those related to syntax. It is intended for different patients suffering from psychotic disorders of different intensities, treated in the Psychotherapeutic Center of Nancy. Patients suffering from at-risk mental state (ARMS), first episode of psychosis (FEP) or schizophrenia will benefit from a complete language assessment, evaluating each domain mentioned above, on the expressive and understanding sides. The results of the language assessment will be compared with those of a control group in the same tests. They will also be analyzed with regard to the neuropsychological and psychiatric elements noted in the patient's medical file, in order to highlight possible associations between language skills, neuropsychological and psychiatric symptoms in this patient population.

The primary objective of this study is to obtain preliminary (pilot) data regarding the feasibility of using dietary omega-3 supplementation in children with significant delays in language skills; a related secondary objective is to compare adherence to a dosage schedule of two easy-to-take formulations. A tertiary objective of this study is to collect preliminary (pilot) data pre- and post-supplementation to identify potential improvement of skills in a specific area of language development.

Many children have eating and verbal oral disorders. Our research entitled: PREORA aims to study the prevalence of oral disorders presented in children consulting in ENT department for three months (n = 2000). This first study will be carried out by passing the MCH (Montreal Children's Hospital) feeding scale, a self-questionnaire completed by the parents, in order to assess the presence of disorders according to the parents and will allow us to present oral disorders (Score > 70).

Aphasia is a language impairment caused by brain injury such as stroke that affects the ability to understand and express language, read and write due to damage in the language regions of the brain. Non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) techniques like transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) have been found to improve aphasia treatment effects in post stroke patient populations such as improved naming abilities. However, the effect of tDCS on more functional, higher level language skills such as discourse production (i.e. story telling, giving instructions) has yet to be understood.Therefore the aim of this study is to determine the potential effectiveness of tDCS as an adjunct to speech and language therapy (SLT) to improve discourse speech production in people with post-stroke aphasia. It is hypothesised that SLT combined with tDCS will result in greater improvements in discourse language production compared to SLT on its own.

The investigators will assess the efficacy of Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) in the treatment of communication deficits in children with intellectual disabilities. By collecting information about parent and child functioning before and after PRT, The investigators will be able to determine whether the intervention is effective in improving child communication and reducing parent stress.