As highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a need for a usable online screener for children with language and reading disorders to support early reading instruction. In the absence of adequate screening,disorders are under-diagnosed and detected too late, resulting in adverse academic outcomes. While research shows that digital tools can successfully screen for language disorders such as SLI (Grammaggio), and reading disorders such as dyslexia (Amira Reading Screener), currently no practical, cost-effective and reliable screening method exists which integrates information about a child's language and reading skills.Our goal is to create a reliable & valid digital screening process amenable to implementation by schools. The goal is to identify at-risk children by combining the predictive role of language impairments (expressed via grammar) with a fully-automated early reading assessment (expressed via reading aloud). By directly comparing the results of both screeners, the research aims to establish the parameters for a unified screener able to operate within the critical constraints of usefulness, namely: modest test time to avoid lost instructional time; an extremely low false positive rate; minimal requirements for teacher training, and; easy access from both the classroom and home. One asset is a sample of children participating in an ongoing longitudinal study with well-documented diagnosis of SLI and reading disorders in addition to extensive experience with Grammaggio. The second asset is a well-documented innovative technology for teaching reading to children (Amira) coupled to a proven reading screener (Amira Reading Screener). Aim 1 is to determine if the combination of a language screener and a reading screener yields increased accuracy for identification of children with reading disorders. Aim 2 is to identify possible correspondences of reading errors identified by Amira with grammatical errors evaluated by Grammaggio. Four groups of children will be recruited from an existing longitudinal sample: SLI, reading disordered, both SLI and reading disorders, and control children.Screening outcomes will be validated against an external gold standard, the existing measurement protocol in R01DC001803 that provides standardized language and reading assessments of participating children.Successful completion of the aims will determine whether a combined electronic screener can reliably, validly, and cost-effectively flag students at-risk for specific disorders. Our prediction is that we will improve our understanding of the overlaps and interactions between reading and language disorders, leading to earlier and more effective treatments of these disorders. The team proposing this work benefits from the field expertise of Rice's team in ongoing data assessments and includes key personnel from Amira Learning. The combination of assets and expertise is well-positioned to make significant progress. Preliminary data collection in advance of this submission suggests that our integrated prototype screener will improve identification of children at-risk for language and reading disorders.
Public Health Relevance Statement: Project Narrative There is a need for time-efficient, accurate, electronic and online diagnostic measures for children with language and reading disorders. While new electronic tools show promise to screen school- aged children for language disorders (Grammaggio), and reading disorders (Amira Reading Screener), currently no practical, cost-effective and reliable digital screening method exists which combines and integrates information about a child's language and reading skills. The goal of this project is to support Dr. Rice and Amira Learning to develop and evaluate a prototype combined screener to improve the ability to accurately and reliably classify or identify children who are language disordered, reading disordered, both, or neither.
Project Terms: Analysis of Variance ; ANOVA ; Variance Analyses ; Child ; 0-11 years old ; Child Youth ; Children (0-21) ; youngster ; Child Language ; Data Collection ; Diagnosis ; Disease ; Disorder ; Goals ; Gold ; Language ; Language Disorders ; Language disability ; language deficit ; Lead ; Pb element ; heavy metal Pb ; heavy metal lead ; Learning ; Literature ; Longitudinal Studies ; long-term study ; longitudinal outcome studies ; longterm study ; Methods ; Methodology ; Program Development ; Reading ; Research ; Research Personnel ; Investigators ; Researchers ; Rice ; Risk ; Role ; social role ; Schools ; sound ; Speech ; Standardization ; Students ; Educational process of instructing ; Teaching ; Technology ; Testing ; Time ; Work ; Generations ; Measures ; Technical Expertise ; technical skills ; base ; improved ; Evaluation ; Training ; Failure ; Individual ; School-Age Population ; school age ; Policies ; Measurement ; tool ; Diagnostic ; Diagnostic Method ; Diagnostic Technique ; Diagnostic Procedure ; Stream ; Protocol ; Protocols documentation ; Pattern ; specific language impairment ; Word Blindness ; Dyslexia ; Services ; innovative technologies ; early detection ; Early Diagnosis ; experience ; Performance ; Accuracy of Diagnosis ; diagnostic accuracy ; skills ; 2nd grade ; second grade ; 3rd grade ; third grade ; Manpower ; personnel ; Human Resources ; Position ; Positioning Attribute ; Early identification ; Sampling ; language disorder diagnosis ; kindergarten ; Intervention Strategies ; interventional strategy ; Intervention ; disease control ; disorder control ; Reading Disorder ; Address ; Data ; Detection ; Process ; Development ; developmental ; Instruction ; cost ; digital ; design ; designing ; Outcome ; cost effective ; Consumption ; Coupled ; innovation ; innovate ; innovative ; Impairment ; prototype ; effective therapy ; effective treatment ; Teacher Professional Development ; Faculty Education ; Faculty Training ; Teacher Education ; Teacher Educator ; Teacher Preparation ; Teacher Training ; faculty development ; faculty professional development ; instructor training ; teacher development ; screening ; reading comprehension ; language impairment ; recruit ; predictive test ; predictive assay ; intelligent tutoring system ; intelligent tutor ; COVID-19 pandemic ; COVID crisis ; COVID epidemic ; COVID pandemic ; COVID-19 crisis ; COVID-19 epidemic ; COVID-19 global health crisis ; COVID-19 global pandemic ; COVID-19 health crisis ; COVID-19 public health crisis ; COVID19 crisis ; COVID19 epidemic ; COVID19 global health crisis ; COVID19 global pandemic ; COVID19 health crisis ; COVID19 pandemic ; COVID19 public health crisis ; SARS-CoV-2 epidemic ; SARS-CoV-2 global health crisis ; SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic ; SARS-CoV-2 pandemic ; SARS-CoV2 epidemic ; SARS-CoV2 pandemic ; SARS-coronavirus-2 epidemic ; SARS-coronavirus-2 pandemic ; Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoV 2 epidemic ; Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoV 2 pandemic ; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 epidemic ; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic ; corona virus disease 2019 epidemic ; corona virus disease 2019 pandemic ; coronavirus disease 2019 crisis ; coronavirus disease 2019 epidemic ; coronavirus disease 2019 global health crisis ; coronavirus disease 2019 global pandemic ; coronavirus disease 2019 health crisis ; coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic ; coronavirus disease 2019 public health crisis ; coronavirus disease crisis ; coronavirus disease epidemic ; coronavirus disease pandemic ; severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 global health crisis ; severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 global pandemic ; Home ;
