How Simplified Language Affects Comprehension and Learning in Young Children With Down Syndrome

How Single-Word and Telegraphic Simplification Affects Language Processing and Word Learning in Young Children With Down Syndrome

The long-term study goal is to experimentally evaluate the components (and likely active ingredients) of early language interventions for young children with Down syndrome (DS). The overall objective is to determine how single-word and telegraphic simplification affects real-time language processing and word learning in young children with DS (relative to full, grammatical utterances). The proposed project will investigate three specific aims: 1) Determine how single-word and telegraphic simplification affects language processing. 2) Determine how single-word and telegraphic simplification affects word learning. 3) Evaluate child characteristics that may moderate the effects of linguistic simplification on language processing and word learning. Aim 1 will test the hypothesis that children with DS will process grammatical utterances faster and more accurately than telegraphic or single-word utterances. Aim 2 will test the hypothesis that overall, children will demonstrate better word learning in the grammatical compared to the single-word and telegraphic conditions. Aim 3 will test the hypothesis that receptive language and nonverbal cognitive abilities will be significant moderators, such that children with stronger linguistic and cognitive skills will show the greatest benefit from grammatical input but children with lower linguistic and cognitive scores will perform similarly across conditions.

Study Overview

• Status: Recruiting
• Conditions: Down Syndrome
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Linguistic simplification

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 30
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Courtney Venker, PhD; Phone Number: 517-884-2259; Email: cvenker@msu.edu
• Study Contact Backup: Name: Jennifer Johnson, M.S.; Phone Number: 517-884-2259; Email: jrj@msu.edu

Study Locations

• United States
  • Michigan
    • East Lansing, Michigan, United States, 48824
      • Recruiting
      • Michigan State University
      • Contact: Courtney Venker, PhD; Phone Number: 5178842259; Email: cvenker@msu.edu

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Down syndrome

English as primary language

2-7 years old

Exclusion Criteria:

• Acquired brain injury

Cerebral palsy

Uncorrected vision or hearing impairment

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Utterance Type; This study uses a within-participant experimental manipulation. All participants will be exposed to all utterances types (across trials).	Behavioral: Linguistic simplification; Children will participate in screen-based language processing and word learning tasks in which they hear utterances with different types and amounts of linguistic simplification (i.e., a within-group manipulation).

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Gaze location on Looking-While-Listening (LWL) tasks	LWL involves a child looking at a screen with two images, one on each side of the screen, while being provided an auditory cue that includes the name of the target image. The primary outcome is a dichotomous variable indicating whether the child is fixated on the target image or the distracter image; gaze directed at neither image will be considered missing. It will be determined whether gaze is to the left or right image, using trained coders who are blind to target side. Gaze location will be observed every 33 ms from 300 ms after onset to 2000 ms after target word onset, for a total of 51 observations per trial. Analyses will focus on differences across trial types and child characteristics in the trajectory of gaze location over the course of the trial.	Baseline

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Gaze location in Teaching Phase of Study 2b (Fast Mapping)	A secondary outcome measure will be gaze location during the Teaching Phase of the Fast Mapping task (Study 2b). The variable is a dichotomous variable indicating whether the child is fixated on the novel image (only a single image is presented in each trial during the Teaching Phase) or not. It will be determined whether gaze is directed to the novel image, as our prior attempts to manually code single-object trials have not been successful. Only children who successfully calibrate and provide adequate automatic eye-tracking data in the Fast Mapping task will be included. Gaze location will be observed every 33 ms during the Teaching Trials. Analyses will focus on differences across trial types (single-word vs. full, grammatical teaching utterances).	Baseline

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Michigan State University
• Collaborators: National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Courtney Venker, PhD, Michigan State University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): January 1, 2025
• Primary Completion (Estimated): May 31, 2027
• Study Completion (Estimated): May 31, 2027

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: April 16, 2025
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 22, 2025
• First Posted (Actual): April 30, 2025

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): April 30, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 22, 2025
• Last Verified: April 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Down syndrome; language development; language processing; language input
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Neurologic Manifestations; Nervous System Diseases; Pathologic Processes; Genetic Diseases, Inborn; Disease; Neurobehavioral Manifestations; Congenital Abnormalities; Abnormalities, Multiple; Intellectual Disability; Chromosome Disorders; Syndrome; Down Syndrome
• Other Study ID Numbers: 3R01DC020165-02S1 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No