AMALS: Addressing Multiple Aspects of Language Simultaneously: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Detailed Summary

The goal of this proposal is to examine the efficacy of a manualized treatment intervention, AMALS: Addressing Multiple Aspects of Language Simultaneously, which is designed to remediate semantic, morphological, and syntactic aspects of language in preschool children with language impairment. This study will target preschool children with language impairment living in a region characterized by nonmainstream dialects. Questions driving this work are: 1. Will children participating in the AMALS treatment exhibit greater semantic, morphological, and syntactic complexity on multiple outcome measures at the completion of the intervention compared to a Discrete Trial Approach (DTA) group? 2. Will these gains be maintained at one-month follow up? 3. What is the impact of dialect on dependent variables, specifically morphosyntactic abilities? To answer these questions a randomized clinical trial will be conducted comparing AMALS, an integrated approach to treatment, with DTA, an additive approach to therapy. In this study rather than restrict the ethnic and cultural backgrounds of this population, children's use of dialect will be uniquely identified and examined.

Study Details

Timeline

Interventions