An Alternative Grammatical Treatment for Children with Language Impairment

针对语言障碍儿童的替代语法治疗

• 批准号: 8182607
• 负责人: Lizbeth H Finestack
• 金额: $ 13.57万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-06-07 至 2014-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8182607
• 关键词: 7 year old; Achievement; Address; Adolescence; Aftercare; Child; Clinical; Clinical Services; Communication impairment; Complex; Comprehension; Data; Discipline; Educational process of instructing; Evaluation; Exhibits; Frequencies; Goals; Impairment; Incidence; Individual; Instruction; Intellectual functioning disability; Intervention; Intervention Studies; Language; Language Development; Language Disorders; Lead; Learning; Life; Linguistics; Maintenance; Measures; Mission; Modeling; Monitor; Outcome; Participant; Pattern; Performance; Process; Public Health; Randomized; Reaction Time; Reading; Research; Research Personnel; Social Interaction; Techniques; Testing; Time; Unconscious State; Work; clinical practice; comparative efficacy; follow-up; improved; innovation; kindergarten; meetings; nervous system disorder; novel; post intervention; programs; response; skills; treatment duration

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Current grammatical treatment approaches for children with primary language disorder (PLD) yield only moderately significant gains after extensive treatment periods and are thus, inadequate. It is estimated that approximately 14% of kindergarten children have PLD, which includes children who exhibit significant weaknesses in language despite failing to meet criteria for intellectual disability. PLD negatively impacts early language development and has long-term detrimental effects on social interactions, academic work, and lifelong achievement. One of the core language weaknesses of children with PLD is poor use of grammatical forms with such weak- nesses persisting well into adolescence. One reason for the long-term negative effects of PLD may be that cur- rent grammatical treatments are using ineffective teaching approaches. Traditional treatments use inductive approaches (e.g., providing models of problematic forms at a high frequency) in which the learner is expected to implicitly acquire and generalize target grammatical forms. Evidence exists in other language-related disciplines that the inclusion of an alternative deductive teaching approach is more effective than inductive approaches alone. Unlike traditional inductive approaches, deductive instruction aims to make the learner explicitly aware of the underlying language pattern by directly presenting the pattern or pedagogic rule. The goal of the proposed study is to compare the efficacy of a traditional inductive approach to an approach that incorporates deductive instruction. This study is an integral component of a program of research focused on identifying effective and efficient interventions for children with language impairment. It is predicted that a combined deductive-inductive (D-I) approach will positively engage children's metacognitive processing skills and will lead to greater grammatical learning by children with PLD than an inductive-only (I-O) approach. Guided by strong preliminary data, this prediction will be tested through four specific aims: (a) to determine if a D-I approach is more efficacious than an I-O approach when teaching novel grammatical forms; (b) to determine whether gains made following D-I instruction are maintained over time; (c) to determine whether a D-I approach is differentially effective when teaching three novel grammatical forms; and (d) to determine if a D-I approach is differentially effective at teaching children with PLD who do and do not have significant language comprehension deficits. To address these aims, 60 5- to 7-year old children with PLD will be randomly assigned to either a D-I or I-O treatment. Participants in both groups will have the opportunity to learn three novel grammatical inflections. Learning will be assessed in terms of accuracy and response times' immediately following and 1-week post- treatment. To date, the primary emphasis on language intervention has been on inductive approaches; there- fore, the proposed evaluation of an alternative intervention approach represents an innovative shift in current clinical practice. The incorporation of deductive approaches may prove to positively impact the long-term out- comes of children with PLD and result in a transformation in clinical services. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The proposed research is relevant to public health because it aims to contribute to a program of research focused on significantly improving the clinical services offered to children with language impairment. Because the project is focused on ameliorating long-term grammatical weaknesses of children with significant language impairment, the project is relevant to NIDCD's mission to improve the lives of individuals with communication disorders.

描述（由申请人提供）：目前针对原发性语言障碍（PLD）儿童的语法治疗方法在经过长期治疗后仅产生中等显着的效果，因此是不够的。据估计，大约 14% 的幼儿园儿童患有 PLD，其中包括尽管不符合智力障碍标准但在语言方面表现出明显弱点的儿童。 PLD 对早期语言发展产生负面影响，并对社交互动、学术工作和终身成就产生长期不利影响。患有 PLD 的儿童的核心语言弱点之一是语法形式使用不当，这种弱点一直持续到青春期。 PLD 产生长期负面影响的原因之一可能是当前的语法治疗采用了无效的教学方法。传统的治疗方法使用归纳方法（例如，高频度地提供有问题的形式的模型），其中学习者被期望隐式地习得和概括目标语法形式。其他语言相关学科的证据表明，纳入替代的演绎教学方法比单独的归纳方法更有效。与传统的归纳方法不同，演绎教学旨在通过直接呈现模式或教学规则，使学习者明确地意识到潜在的语言模式。拟议研究的目的是比较传统归纳法与演绎教学法的功效。这项研究是一项研究计划的重要组成部分，该计划的重点是确定针对语言障碍儿童的有效且高效的干预措施。据预测，演绎-归纳 (D-I) 相结合的方法将积极调动儿童的元认知处理技能，并且与纯归纳 (I-O) 方法相比，PLD 儿童将能够更好地学习语法。在强有力的初步数据的指导下，这一预测将通过四个具体目标进行测试：(a) 确定在教授新语法形式时，D-I 方法是否比 I-O 方法更有效； (b) 确定 D-I 指令后所获得的收益是否会随着时间的推移而保持； (c) 确定 D-I 方法在教授三种新颖的语法形式时是否具有不同的效果； (d) 确定 D-I 方法在教育有和没有显着语言理解缺陷的 PLD 儿童时是否有不同的效果。为了实现这些目标，60 名 5 至 7 岁的 PLD 儿童将被随机分配接受 D-I 或 I-O 治疗。两组的参与者将有机会学习三种新颖的语法变化。将根据治疗后立即和治疗后 1 周的准确性和反应时间来评估学习情况。迄今为止，语言干预的主要重点是归纳法。因此，对替代干预方法的拟议评估代表了当前临床实践的创新转变。演绎方法的结合可能会对 PLD 儿童的长期结局产生积极影响，并导致临床服务的转变。 公共健康相关性：拟议的研究与公共健康相关，因为它旨在促进一项研究计划，该计划的重点是显着改善为语言障碍儿童提供的临床服务。由于该项目的重点是改善有严重语言障碍的儿童的长期语法弱点，因此该项目与 NIDCD 改善沟通障碍患者生活的使命相关。