An interventional study of Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing Treatment in Childhood Apraxia of Speech, sponsored by Marquette University. Active, not recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 30 Months to 95 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-05-21.
Sponsored by Marquette University · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment
Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a pediatric motor-based speech sound disorder that requires a specialized approach to intervention (Maas et al., 2014). The extant literature on the treatment of CAS commonly recommends intensive treatment using a motor-based approach, with some of the best evidence supporting the use of Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing (DTTC; Strand, 2020). To date, a rigorous and systematic comparison of high and low dose frequency has not been undertaken for DTTC, resulting in a lack of evidence to guide decisions about the optimal treatment schedule for this intervention. The current study aims to fill this gap in knowledge by comparing treatment outcomes when dose frequency is varied.
The goal of this clinical trial is to determine whether the number of treatment sessions per week has an effect on intervention outcomes in 60 children with CAS. The main question this research will address is whether whole word accuracy will differ between two groups of children undergoing DTTC treatment when one group of children receives treatment twice a week for 12 weeks and the other group receives treatment 4 times a week for 6 weeks. Community clinicians will administer all treatment sessions.
Sixty children with childhood apraxia of speech will be treated with DTTC treatment. A Phase III randomized controlled trial with parallel groups will be conducted to compare effects of low versus high dose frequency on DTTC treatment outcomes in children with CAS. Children with CAS between 2;5-7;11 years of age will be recruited to participate in this study. Treatment will be provided in the community setting by speech-language pathologists who have completed specialized training administering DTTC in a research reliable manner.
True randomization with concealed allocation will be used to assign children to either the low or high dose frequency group. Treatment will be administered in 1-hour sessions either 4 times per week over a 6-week period (high dose) or 2 times per week over a 12-week period (low dose) for a total of 24 hours per child. To measure treatment gains, probe data will be collected before treatment, during treatment, and 1 day, 1 week, 4 weeks, and 12 weeks post-treatment. Probe data will consist of customized treated words and a standard set of untreated words to assess generalization of treatment gains. The primary outcome variable will be whole word accuracy, a measure of segmental, phonotactic, and suprasegmental accuracy.
This will be the first randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate dose frequency for DTTC treatment in children with CAS.
65 studies on the registry are indexed under Apraxias; 21 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 60 is above the median of 32 across 50 interventional studies indexed under Apraxias.
Browse Apraxias studies →Marquette University is the lead sponsor of 38 studies on the registry; 10 are open to participants now.
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Exclusion Criteria:
This group will receive treatment 4x/week for 6 weeks
Behavioral: Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing Treatment
This group will receive treatment 2x/week for 12 weeks
Behavioral: Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing Treatment
DTTC is a dynamic, motor-based treatment approach designed for children with severe CAS. This approach is based on Integral Stimulation (Edeal \& Gildersleeve-Neumann, 2011; Maas \& Farinella, 2012; Maas et al., 2019; Strand \& Debertine, 2000; Strand \& Skinder, 1999), in which the clinician instructs the child to "listen to me, watch me, and do what I do" and systematically taxes and supports the speech motor system to facilitate system-wide change in speech output (Strand, 2020).
Also known as: DTTC
Changes to whole word accuracy
A multi-factor whole word accuracy measure (Multilevel word Accuracy Composite Scale; Case et al., under review) that systematically accounts for segmental and prosodic accuracy, word shape maintenance, and smoothness and fluency of movement transitions will be calculated on treated and similar untreated words in the generalization probe.
Time frame: Pre to post-treatment follow-up (6-12 weeks of treatment plus 12 weeks post completion of treatment)
Phoneme accuracy
Percentage of phonemes correct on the generalization probe
Time frame: Pre to post-treatment follow-up (6-12 weeks of treatment plus 12 weeks post completion of treatment)
Speech Intelligibility
Calculated based on the Intelligibility in Context Scale (McLeod et al., 2012), a parent survey measure
Time frame: Pre to post-treatment follow-up (6-12 weeks of treatment plus 4 weeks post completion of treatment)
Functional communication
Calculated based on the Functional Outcomes on Communication Under Six (Thomas-Stonell et al., 2015), a parent survey measure
Time frame: Pre to post-treatment follow-up (6-12 weeks of treatment plus 4 weeks post treatment)
Plan to share: Yes — Deidentified individual level data will be shared.
Supporting information: Study protocol, Statistical analysis plan, Informed consent form
Time frame: Beginning 6 months after publication. No end date.
Access criteria: Researchers who provide a methodologically sound proposal and evidence of ethical conduct of research and appropriate institutional oversight (e.g., IRB). Proposals should be directed to jenya.iuzzini-seigel@marquette.edu. To gain access, data requestors will need to complete and sign a data sharing agreement.
Started Mar 2023 (actual). Primary completion is estimated for Nov 2025, 32 months after the start.
Of 30 interventional studies with no phase under Apraxias, half reached primary completion within 53 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 21 and three quarters within 59. This study's planned 32 months is below that.
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This study is active, not recruiting, as verified in May 2025. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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