Active clinical trials for "Language Development Disorders"

The purpose of this study is to compare the performances of normally developing children and children with Language Impairment (LI) in three different experimental settings designed to promote vocabulary acquisition. This comparison will also provide evidence to support different intervention approaches designed to increase vocabulary abilities, which has been proved to be one of the major deficits of young children with LI.

This project will measure the degree to which parenting programs based in pediatric primary care can be effective in promoting language development and school readiness in at-risk young children. The study is a randomized controlled trial in which two different primary care-based parenting programs will be compared to a control group in a population that is at risk on the basis of poverty. The two programs represent varying levels of low intensity, but each has the same goals: enhancing parent-child interaction in order to improve language, cognitive and social-emotional development and ultimately promote school readiness and school performance. One program is called the "Video Interaction Project". While waiting to see the primary care provider for well child care, the family meets with a child development specialist, who videotapes the parent and infant interacting together. The videotape is then rewound and watched together by the parent (and infant!) and child development specialist. This leads to a discussion about child development, infant cues and parenting, with the child development specialist building on observed strengths in the interaction. In addition, families are provided with parenting pamphlets developed for the project, and with inexpensive developmentally stimulating toys. The other program is called the "ASQ-Building Blocks Project". This project employs a public health approach to facilitate parental engagement in child development. Families are sent monthly newsletters that focus on child development, infant cues and parenting; included with each newsletter is an inexpensive, developmentally stimulating toy. In addition, families periodically receive Ages and Stages Questionnaires, which they complete and mail back to the program. Based on the questionnaires, the program determines whether the infant has screened positive for possible developmental delay and provides this information to both the family and the primary care provider. This study will test 2 hypotheses: Primary care based parenting interventions can impact parent-child interaction, early child development and school readiness. Interventions of differing intensity will have impacts of differing magnitude depending on the risk level of the family.

This study tests a memory-based account of atypical speech perception in adults with language-based learning disability (also known as developmental language impairment [LI]). One perspective regarding the its etiology considers impoverished speech sound representations to be central to the linguistic symptoms observed in LI. This project examines a potential abnormality in the process of building speech sound representations in LI. Previous work by the PI has found that sleep is important for learning speech sounds. Furthermore, different measures of speech perception (identification and discrimination), reveal distinct patterns of learning that are consistent with that of declarative and procedural memory consolidation. A division of labor by declarative and procedural memory systems in the building of speech representations may imply that problems with phonology may stem from selective weaknesses in declarative or procedural memory in predictive ways. The first project Aim is to identify the memory substrates of novel phonetic category formation. In Experiment 1, the investigators will obtain behavioral measures of declarative, procedural, and speech sound learning before and after post-training sleep in 40 typical adults and 20 adults with LI. Among typical adults, a double dissociation is predicted in which speech identification will be predicted by individual differences in declarative memory, and speech discrimination will be predicted by individual differences in procedural memory. Moreover, adults with LI are predicted to demonstrate consolidation deficits across memory types. The second project Aim is to identify the neural substrates of phonetic category formation. In Experiment 2, the investigators will obtain functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) recordings of 20 TD and 20 LI adults performing post-training identification and discrimination tasks on a trained speech contrast before and after sleep. In typical adults, a Time by Speech-task interaction is predicted. Speech identification will recruit episodic (hippocampal) information on Day 1 relative to classic regions for phonological processing on Day 2. Speech discrimination will result in a change in magnitude of activation from Days 1 and 2 in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), reflecting an overnight decrease in effort. LI (n=20) is predicted to demonstrate reduced overnight change in neural activation relative to TD in both tasks.

Prospective, interventionnal with minimal risks and constraints, multicentric, non-randomized, open study, to measure the impact of an early support programme in speech and language therapy for vulnerable children (PAPEV-ortho), in children born very prematurely or very hypotrophically, on the incidence of language and communication deficits at the corrected age of 2 years.

The proposed study aims to understand poor sleep as a possible cause to CAPD in children and adolescents with ASD (ASD+) compared to ASD youth without CAPD (ASD-), using both caregiver-report and objective clinician administered measures. Additionally, the study will aim to understand the complex relationship between CAPD, sleep, and other associated phenotypic features of ASD such as executive and psychiatric functioning.

There has been limited research in the area of speech and language therapy awareness in Pakistan. The study aims to assess the efficacy of providing speech therapy awareness in private schools through a pre-post model. This Quasi experimental study will be a means of reaching out to schools and directly create awareness regarding the field and its scope. Pre-assessment will be carried out and after which a 45 minutes presentation will be conducted face to face or through a webinar as per school directives. The results will be analysed quantitatively and pre-post assessment of the participants will be measured.

This study aimed to evaluate long term benefits in speech reception in noise, after daily 10 week use of an assisting listening device (personal frequency-modulates systems) , in non-aphasic stroke patients with auditory processing deficits.

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) usually present coexisting problems in emotion and behavior regulation, similarly as premature children with communication or socialization difficulties. Caring for children with neurodevelopmental difficulties is an important stressor for parents. Therefore, it is essential that families are offered evidence-based interventions at an early stage within the public health service. Group therapy is a cost-effective intervention that can help parents of children diagnosed with autism and those born prematurely. The Incredible Years - ASLD program is an example of this sort of therapy, consisting of a group intervention for parents of preschool children with a diagnosis of ASD or Language Delay. In Spain, group interventions for children with ASD and preterm children presenting with Language Delay are scarce in the public health service. The Incredible Years - ASLD program has not been translated into Spanish and it has not been previously implemented in our country. The Incredible Years - ASLD group intervention will be carried out in three public Healthcare centers. It is intended to recruit 72 patients diagnosed with ASD or premature children with communication or socialization difficulties, which will be randomized to an Intervention Group or to Treatment as Usual (TAU) Group. The Intervention Group will receive fourteen sessions of the Incredible Years - ASLD program in addition to Treatment as Usual (TAU). In terms of clinical implications, this randomized pilot study could demonstrate the feasibility of implementing this intervention in the regular clinical settings within the Spanish public health service and could be a first step for future controlled studies that demonstrate its effectiveness.

Background: Increasing prevalence rates of developmental disorders (DDs) including Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and intellectual disability are a public health priority particularly in Low and Middle Income countries (LIMC) and are included in the World Health Organization (WHO) mhGAP program. However, existing mental health care facilities and resources are insufficient in most low resource settings to cater for this increasing demand. To address this situation, Caregiver Skills Training (CST) program for children with developmental disorders and delays has been developed by the WHO to bridge the treatment gap in low resource settings. Objective: The objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the WHO CST program plus treatment as usual (TAU) vs. TAU to improve caregiver-child interaction in children with developmental disorders and delays, when implemented by non-specialist health care facilitators in a low-resource rural community settings of Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Methods: A two arm, single blind individual randomized controlled trial (RCT) will be carried out with 160 caregiver-child dyads with development disorders and delays in community settings of Rawalpindi, Pakistan. 160 caregiver-child dyads will be individually randomized on 1:1 allocation ratio into intervention (n=80) and control (n=80) arms. Participants in the intervention arm will receive 3-hours group training sessions of WHO CST program once every week for 9 weeks and 3 individual home sessions delivered via non-specialist health care facilitator over a duration of 3-months. The primary outcome is improvement in play-based caregiver-child interaction at 9-months post-intervention. The secondary outcomes are improvement in routine home-based caregiver-child interaction, child's social communication skills, adaptive behavior, emotional and behavioral problems and parental health related quality of life. The data on health services utilization will also be collected at 9-months post-intervention. Qualitative process evaluation with a sub-sample of study participants and trainers will be undertaken following the RCT. The study will be completed within an estimated period of 11-months. Discussion: Outcomes of the study will be the evidence on the effectiveness of WHO CST program to improve caregiver child interaction and improvement in social communication skills, adaptive behaviors of children with developmental disorders and delays in the low resource setting of Pakistan.

Most studies regarding word learning have focused on understanding when and how infants learn words. At 24 months, typically developing infants know between 200 and 300 words and add new words to their vocabularies at a rapid rate. It is also during the first years of life that some principles that promote vocabulary learning are developed. The shape bias, which is a tendency to infer that objects that share the same shape will also share the same name, is the one that has been studied the most. At 24 months, typically developing infants use this principle as a strategy to learn novel words. In contrast, Late Talkers (children with a language delay in the absence of a physiological, cognitive or genetic disorder that may account for this delay) do not exhibit this preference. It has been found that teaching typically developing infants a shape bias prior to the end of the second year of life can boosts their word learning. Despite this, the possibility of teaching Late Talkers this principle and its effect on their vocabulary and language development has not been explored. Over a series of 9 weekly sessions, Late Talkers (diagnosed by Language Therapists from the Birmingham Community Healthcare National Health Services Foundation Trust, United Kingdom) will be introduced to one of two possible interventions: a shape bias intervention and a more conventional intervention called "specific word intervention". Both interventions will be compared after 9 weeks. One year later, a follow up study will be conducted to assess the long-term effects each intervention has in word learning. Participants will be referred by a Speech and Language Therapists from the Birmingham Community Healthcare National Health Services Foundation Trust, United Kingdom, and all assessments and interventions will take place at the Infant and Child Lab at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom.