NCT03764761

Storybook Reading in Individuals With Down Syndrome

Terminated NA Last updated 29 April 2022

What this trial tests

NA trial testing AAC Technology - Standard of Care in Down Syndrome in 14 participants. Terminated before completion.

Timeline

1 April 2018

Primary endpoint
30 November 2021

30 November 2021

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	Penn State University
Phase	NA
Status	Terminated
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	na
Design	single group
Masking	none
Primary purpose	device feasibility
Enrollment	14
Start date	1 April 2018
Primary completion	30 November 2021
Estimated completion	30 November 2021
Sites	1 location across United States

Drugs / interventions tested

• AAC Technology - Standard of Care
• AAC Technology - non-optimal integrated arrangement
• AAC Technology - non-optimal integrated arrangement

Conditions studied

• Down Syndrome — all drugs for Down Syndrome →
• Augmentative and Alternative Communication — all drugs for Augmentative and Alternative Communication →

Sponsor

Penn State University

Who can join

Adults 7 to 35, any sex, with Down Syndrome or Augmentative and Alternative Communication. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

This study uses mobile eye-tracking technology in order to characterize patterns of visual attention to communication supports, as well as a partner, within real world interactions for individuals with Down syndrome.

Visual communication supports are central components of what is termed augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) intervention. AAC refers to the methods and technology designed to supplement spoken communication for people with limited speech. "Aided" AAC is a subcategory in which an external aid stores and presents for use visual symbols such as photographs, line drawings, or alphabet letters. The most traditional means of structuring aided AAC displays is to present the language concepts within row-column grids, which contain individual symbols/concepts placed in each grid square. The investigator's previous work investigated whether these grid-based presentations could be improved by understanding how different perceptual features of the displays influence responding (i.e., whether what the display looks like influences how easily the information on it is found). Individuals with developmental disabilities and children developing typically were faster and more accurate in finding information on some displays over others, when tested using a "visual search" task (aka, a "finding game" - "find the dog").

The previous investigations have evaluated visual attention within a setting that isolated visual processing of the AAC display as the primary dependent measure. However, communication requires attention not only to an AAC display, but also to a communication partner. Therefore, the current study seeks to examine questions of visual attention to both an AAC display and a communication partner. The investigators will manipulate characteristics of the structure of the display (e.g., arrangement of symbols), in order to determine if more optimal displays facilitate desirable patterns of visual attention to both the communication display and the partner. The mobile eye-tracking technology captures attention to both the display and the communication partner. The investigators anticipate that participants will be able to attend to their partner and the shared activity more when the AAC display is more optimal, but that when the AAC display is sub-optimal, the participants will have to spend more time examining the AAC display and less time in actual communication.

Publications & conference data

No peer-reviewed publications indexed yet for this trial.