The Efficacy of a Serious Game in the Grammatical Intervention of Children Aged 7-10 Years with a Developmental Language Disorder

Abstract

Background Modern and digitized intervention approaches, such as serious games (SGs) could make an engaging and challenging contribution to keep children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) motivated during their often long-term intervention for grammatical difficulties. Recently, a SG has been developed for grammatical therapy for children aged 7-10 years with grammatical problems, based on an explicit approach. However, it is not yet known what the effect of this SG is on the grammatical development of children with DLD. Aim The objective of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of a serious game compared to conventional grammatical therapy to enhance grammatical complexity and accuracy of their spoken language in grammatical intervention with Dutch children with developmental language disorder aged 7-10 years. Methods In this single-case quasi-experimental AB-design language sample analysis was used to measure the change in mean length of utterances in words (MLUw), clausal density (CD) and grammatical accuracy (GA). Children aged 7;1-10;6 (YY;MM) with DLD (n=14) visiting a special school for children with speech and language disorders or a speech language therapy private practice in the Netherlands were included and received five weekly 20-minute sessions of conventional grammatical therapy (i.e. control condition, CC) followed by five weekly 20-minute SG sessions (i.e. experimental condition, EC). Results On a group level grammatical complexity and accuracy did not changed significantly after each condition, and after a total treatment period of 10 weeks. After the CC seven children had increased MLUw, three children had increased CD and seven children had increased GA. After the EC eight children had increased MLUw, six children increased CD and six children had increased GA. Conclusion It can be concluded that a serious game in grammatical intervention of Dutch children with DLD aged 7-10 years produced individual gains on grammatical complexity and accuracy of their spoken language compared to conventional grammatical intervention, but on a group level change was not significant. Implications of key findings Treatment using SGs offers children with DLD and SLTs additional or alternative options for grammatical therapy, to keep the children motivated in their often long-term intervention.