Sentence Shaping: Written Language Intervention for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Middle Schoolers

Status: Recruiting
Location: See location...
Intervention Type: Behavioral
Study Type: Interventional
Study Phase: Not Applicable
SUMMARY

The proposed research addresses a long-standing and important challenge of improving literacy skills of children who are deaf and hard of hearing, a historically under researched group. The investigators aim to leverage shape coding - an empirically validated intervention approach for constructing sentences in spoken English - for improving how efficiently children who are deaf and hard of hearing learn to correctly construct sentences in written English. To advance the promising yet underutilized research on shape coding, the investigators complete the next logical step of applying the visual supports provided with shape coding to written language for deaf and hard of hearing children. Shape coding has been effective for teaching sentence structure in spoken English to children with language disabilities and has recently been applied to sentence structure in American Sign Language with deaf and hard of hearing children. Intervention involving shape coding is predicted to result in increased accuracy of word order in sentences in written English because deaf and hard of hearing children often benefit from visual information. The investigators will accomplish this aim using single case multiple probe across participants design studies with 30 fifth through eighth grade children who are deaf and hard of hearing. The knowledge gained will guide language and literacy intervention for children who are deaf and hard of hearing.

Eligibility
Participation Requirements
Sex: All
Minimum Age: 9
Maximum Age: 15
Healthy Volunteers: f
View:

• Children in grades five through eight

• deaf or hard of hearing

• use spoken English and American Sign Language (ASL)

• bilateral hearing loss

• the ability to read and understand the grammatical structures of interest

• already be writing sentences, but demonstrate errors in word order and/or grammar.

Locations
United States
Tennessee
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
RECRUITING
Nashville
Contact Information
Primary
Adriana M Valtierra, M.S.
adriana.m.valtierra@vanderbilt.edu
219-614-5980
Backup
Jena McDaniel, PhD
jena.mcdaniel@vumc.org
615-936-5114
Time Frame
Start Date: 2025-08-28
Estimated Completion Date: 2026-10
Participants
Target number of participants: 30
Treatments
Experimental: Shape coding
Intervention will be introducing and utilizing Shape Coding to construct sentences.
Related Therapeutic Areas
Sponsors
Leads: Vanderbilt University

This content was sourced from clinicaltrials.gov

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