(from applicant?s abstract): Nearly 7% of elementary school children present difficulties learning and using language. Unfortunately, language impairments are often long lasting and may have serious social, academic, and vocational ramifications. More than 1 million children receive language intervention in the public schools each year, and many more are seen in hospitals and other clinical settings. Recently, a computerized intervention approach known as Fast ForWord has received a great deal of attention at scientific meetings and in the popular press. The creators of this program (Michael Merzenich, Paula Tallal, and their associates) claim that Fast ForWord trains children?s brains to process speech better by gradually reducing specialized acoustic modifications of speech stimuli as children improve on the games. The creators of Fast ForWord have completed a large, one-group, pretest-postest national field trial of their program. Their results suggest that children make approximately 1 standard deviation of improvement on standardized tests after a 6-week intervention period. We propose a randomized clinical study to compare the language outcomes of Fast ForWord to two other interventions (computer assisted language intervention without acoustically modified speech and individual language intervention) and to the outcomes of a general stimulation (control) condition. Each year for 3 years, 24 children will be randomly assigned to each of the four conditions at three regional sites (Austin, Texas Dallas, Texas, and Lawrence, Kansas) for a total of 54 children in each condition at the end of the study. The treatments will be administered in special summer programs. The primary research question is which intervention results in the most improvement in the composite language score from the Oral and Written Language Scales. Secondary questions include which intervention results in the greatest gains in conversational language, which intervention results in the greatest gains 3 and 6 months after training, which intervention results in the greatest improvement in auditory perception, and which intervention is the most cost effective. Our results will have theoretical and practical value. Theoretically, our study tests the temporal processing hypothesis of language impairment. Practically, our study will describe and compare the language, communication, auditory processing and academic outcomes of three interventions. Our analyses will help clinicians and administrators choose the most effective and least expensive treatment for the children they serve.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Type
Research Project--Cooperative Agreements (U01)
Project #
7U01DC004560-05
Application #
7328042
Study Section
Communication Disorders Review Committee (CDRC)
Program Officer
Hughes, Gordon B
Project Start
2001-09-01
Project End
2007-08-31
Budget Start
2006-12-01
Budget End
2007-08-31
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
2004
Total Cost
$113,618
Indirect Cost
Name
Utah State University
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Education
DUNS #
072983455
City
Logan
State
UT
Country
United States
Zip Code
84322
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Gillam, Ronald B; Peña, Elizabeth D; Bedore, Lisa M et al. (2013) Identification of specific language impairment in bilingual children: I. Assessment in English. J Speech Lang Hear Res 56:1813-23
Hoffman, LaVae M; Loeb, Diane Frome; Brandel, Jayne et al. (2011) Concurrent and construct validity of oral language measures with school-age children with specific language impairment. J Speech Lang Hear Res 54:1597-608
Colozzo, Paola; Gillam, Ronald B; Wood, Megan et al. (2011) Content and form in the narratives of children with specific language impairment. J Speech Lang Hear Res 54:1609-27
Loeb, Diane Frome; Gillam, Ronald B; Hoffman, LaVae et al. (2009) The effects of Fast ForWord Language on the phonemic awareness and reading skills of school-age children with language impairments and poor reading skills. Am J Speech Lang Pathol 18:376-87
Gillam, Ronald B; Loeb, Diane Frome; Hoffman, Lavae M et al. (2008) The efficacy of Fast ForWord Language intervention in school-age children with language impairment: a randomized controlled trial. J Speech Lang Hear Res 51:97-119
Pena, Elizabeth D; Gillam, Ronald B; Malek, Melynn et al. (2006) Dynamic assessment of school-age children's narrative ability: an experimental investigation of classification accuracy. J Speech Lang Hear Res 49:1037-57