Dynamic Assessment of the Risk for Language and Reading Disorders in Monolingual and Multilingual Children

Study Results

Results pending

The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.

Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

RECRUITING

Clinical Phase

NA

Total Enrollment

150 participants

Study Classification

INTERVENTIONAL

Study Start Date

2023-04-03

Study Completion Date

2025-12-31

Brief Summary

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The project represents the completion of a part of the recently concluded European project MultiMind, in which a computer platform called MuLiMi was developed and validated. The platform hosts screening tests for the identification of the risk of Language and Learning Disorders in preschool and primary school children, respectively. The aim is to validate the Dynamic Assessment (DA) tests (a first test assessing the capacity to learn new words for preschool children and a second one assessing the capacity to learn a new spelling code for school-age children) in a population of monolingual and bilingual children attending preschool and primary school. The main goal of the study is to complete the validation of the two Dynamic Assessment tests implemented in the MuLiMi platform developed for the MultiMind project.

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Detailed Description

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Dynamic Assessment tests are characterized by their emphasis on the learning process activated during the test itself, focusing on measuring the improvement achieved from the beginning to the end of the test rather than the absolute level of performance. They are thus considered measures of the learning potential (in this case, language and spelling) of the assessed subject. This type of testing is used as an integration of static assessment (traditional, aimed at detecting absolute performance level) and has proven particularly useful in the assessment of multilingual children.

However, computerized tests that can also be used remotely are not currently available. For these reasons, it was found particularly useful to include this type of task within the MuLiMi computerized battery. While the other tests hosted on the MuLiMi platform concern specific L1-L2 pairs, DA tests can be applied regardless of the L1 (provided a minimum L2 mastery is present so as to understand the requests) because they assess the capacity to learn new information and are thus rather independent of previous knowledge. This study will provide baseline data for the MuLiMi battery applied to children belonging to any language minority group and thus enable it to be used comprehensively in the future for the purpose of risk assessment of language and learning disorders.

Conditions

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Developmental Dyslexia Developmental Language Disorder

Study Design

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Allocation Method

NON_RANDOMIZED

Intervention Model

PARALLEL

The study will compare performance in a parallel manner in two populations: preschool and school-age children.

Preschool age children will be assessed with the DA screening test for the risk of DLD, whereas school-age children will be assessed with the DA screening test for the risk of SRD. Each of the two groups will be subdivided into 2 groups: typically developing (TD) and atypically developing (AD). Each of the 2 groups will be further subdivided into monolingual and multilingual children. Pairwise comparisons will be performed to assess the capacity of the DA screening tools to discriminate AD from TD children, separately for monolingual and multilingual children.

Primary Study Purpose

SCREENING

Blinding Strategy

NONE

Study Groups

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TD preschooler, monolingual

This group will include monolingual children who have not been referred to clinical or educational services for any delay or disorder in language abilities. They will be tested with the MuLiMi battery (lexical, phonological and morphosyntactic tests), including the DA Novel Word Learning Test (NWLT) as DA screening test. Furthermore, they will be assessed with standardized language tests providing benchmark measures for validation.

Group Type ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

computerized Dynamic Assessment

Intervention Type DIAGNOSTIC_TEST

The DA tests (with a duration of about 30 minutes) can be administered by accessing the digital platform MuLiMi, individually with the experimenter or examiner. The tests are in game form and require children to learn the names of characters presented in the context of stories (preschool version) or to learn new codes for reading and writing (primary school version). In both cases, the new materials (names or codes) are repeatedly presented to the child until (s)he reaches an accuracy threshold. The number of repetitions needed to reach the threshold constitutes the main measure of the child's learning capacity, together with the number of errors committed during the various cycles.

TD preschooler, multilingual

This group will include multilingual children who have not been referred to clinical or educational services for any delay or disorder in language abilities. They will be tested with the MuLiMi battery (lexical, phonological and morphosyntactic tests), including the DA Novel Word Learning Test (NWLT) as DA screening test. Furthermore, they will be assessed with standardized language tests providing benchmark measures for validation.

Group Type ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

computerized Dynamic Assessment

Intervention Type DIAGNOSTIC_TEST

The DA tests (with a duration of about 30 minutes) can be administered by accessing the digital platform MuLiMi, individually with the experimenter or examiner. The tests are in game form and require children to learn the names of characters presented in the context of stories (preschool version) or to learn new codes for reading and writing (primary school version). In both cases, the new materials (names or codes) are repeatedly presented to the child until (s)he reaches an accuracy threshold. The number of repetitions needed to reach the threshold constitutes the main measure of the child's learning capacity, together with the number of errors committed during the various cycles.

DLD preschooler, monolingual

This group will include monolingual children who have been referred to clinical or educational services because of delays or disorders in language abilities. They will be tested with the MuLiMi battery (lexical, phonological and morphosyntactic tests), including the DA Novel Word Learning Test (NWLT) as DA screening test. Furthermore, they will be assessed with standardized language tests providing benchmark measures for validation.

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

computerized Dynamic Assessment

Intervention Type DIAGNOSTIC_TEST

The DA tests (with a duration of about 30 minutes) can be administered by accessing the digital platform MuLiMi, individually with the experimenter or examiner. The tests are in game form and require children to learn the names of characters presented in the context of stories (preschool version) or to learn new codes for reading and writing (primary school version). In both cases, the new materials (names or codes) are repeatedly presented to the child until (s)he reaches an accuracy threshold. The number of repetitions needed to reach the threshold constitutes the main measure of the child's learning capacity, together with the number of errors committed during the various cycles.

DLD preschooler, multilingual

This group will include multilingual children who have been referred to clinical or educational services because of delays or disorders in language abilities. They will be tested with the MuLiMi battery (lexical, phonological and morphosyntactic tests), including the DA Novel Word Learning Test (NWLT) as DA screening test. Furthermore, they will be assessed with standardized language tests providing benchmark measures for validation.

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

computerized Dynamic Assessment

Intervention Type DIAGNOSTIC_TEST

The DA tests (with a duration of about 30 minutes) can be administered by accessing the digital platform MuLiMi, individually with the experimenter or examiner. The tests are in game form and require children to learn the names of characters presented in the context of stories (preschool version) or to learn new codes for reading and writing (primary school version). In both cases, the new materials (names or codes) are repeatedly presented to the child until (s)he reaches an accuracy threshold. The number of repetitions needed to reach the threshold constitutes the main measure of the child's learning capacity, together with the number of errors committed during the various cycles.

TD school-age, monolingual

This group will include monolingual children who have not been referred to clinical or educational services for any delay or disorder in language abilities. They will be tested with the MuLiMi battery (reading, orthographic and metaphonological tests), including the Dynamic Reading Assessment (DRA) as DA screening test. Furthermore, they will be assessed with standardized reading and language tests providing benchmark measures for validation.

Group Type ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

computerized Dynamic Assessment

Intervention Type DIAGNOSTIC_TEST

The DA tests (with a duration of about 30 minutes) can be administered by accessing the digital platform MuLiMi, individually with the experimenter or examiner. The tests are in game form and require children to learn the names of characters presented in the context of stories (preschool version) or to learn new codes for reading and writing (primary school version). In both cases, the new materials (names or codes) are repeatedly presented to the child until (s)he reaches an accuracy threshold. The number of repetitions needed to reach the threshold constitutes the main measure of the child's learning capacity, together with the number of errors committed during the various cycles.

TD school-age, multilingual

This group will include monolingual children who have not been referred to clinical or educational services for any delay or disorder in language abilities. They will be tested with the MuLiMi battery (reading, orthographic and metaphonological tests), including the Dynamic Reading Assessment (DRA) as DA screening test. Furthermore, they will be assessed with standardized reading and language tests providing benchmark measures for validation.

Group Type ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

computerized Dynamic Assessment

Intervention Type DIAGNOSTIC_TEST

The DA tests (with a duration of about 30 minutes) can be administered by accessing the digital platform MuLiMi, individually with the experimenter or examiner. The tests are in game form and require children to learn the names of characters presented in the context of stories (preschool version) or to learn new codes for reading and writing (primary school version). In both cases, the new materials (names or codes) are repeatedly presented to the child until (s)he reaches an accuracy threshold. The number of repetitions needed to reach the threshold constitutes the main measure of the child's learning capacity, together with the number of errors committed during the various cycles.

SRD school-age, monolingual

This group will include monolingual children who have been referred to clinical or educational services for any delay or disorder in language abilities. They will be tested with the MuLiMi battery (reading, orthographic and metaphonological tests), including the Dynamic Reading Assessment (DRA) as DA screening test. Furthermore, they will be assessed with standardized reading and language tests providing benchmark measures for validation.

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

computerized Dynamic Assessment

Intervention Type DIAGNOSTIC_TEST

The DA tests (with a duration of about 30 minutes) can be administered by accessing the digital platform MuLiMi, individually with the experimenter or examiner. The tests are in game form and require children to learn the names of characters presented in the context of stories (preschool version) or to learn new codes for reading and writing (primary school version). In both cases, the new materials (names or codes) are repeatedly presented to the child until (s)he reaches an accuracy threshold. The number of repetitions needed to reach the threshold constitutes the main measure of the child's learning capacity, together with the number of errors committed during the various cycles.

SRD school-age, multilingual

This group will include multilingual children who have been referred to clinical or educational services for any delay or disorder in language abilities. They will be tested with the MuLiMi battery (reading, orthographic and metaphonological tests), including the Dynamic Reading Assessment (DRA) as DA screening test. Furthermore, they will be assessed with standardized reading and language tests providing benchmark measures for validation.

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

computerized Dynamic Assessment

Intervention Type DIAGNOSTIC_TEST

The DA tests (with a duration of about 30 minutes) can be administered by accessing the digital platform MuLiMi, individually with the experimenter or examiner. The tests are in game form and require children to learn the names of characters presented in the context of stories (preschool version) or to learn new codes for reading and writing (primary school version). In both cases, the new materials (names or codes) are repeatedly presented to the child until (s)he reaches an accuracy threshold. The number of repetitions needed to reach the threshold constitutes the main measure of the child's learning capacity, together with the number of errors committed during the various cycles.

Interventions

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computerized Dynamic Assessment

The DA tests (with a duration of about 30 minutes) can be administered by accessing the digital platform MuLiMi, individually with the experimenter or examiner. The tests are in game form and require children to learn the names of characters presented in the context of stories (preschool version) or to learn new codes for reading and writing (primary school version). In both cases, the new materials (names or codes) are repeatedly presented to the child until (s)he reaches an accuracy threshold. The number of repetitions needed to reach the threshold constitutes the main measure of the child's learning capacity, together with the number of errors committed during the various cycles.

Intervention Type DIAGNOSTIC_TEST

Other Intervention Names

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MuLiMi Dynamic Assessment tools

Eligibility Criteria

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Inclusion Criteria

* age 4-6 years (Kindergarten) or 7-9 years (Primary school);
* Attendance at an Italian-language school in Italy or Switzerland/Germany.

* (i) At least one parent speaks at least one language other than Italian in the family;
* (ii) Continuous exposure to the Italian language for at least two years.