Effectiveness of an online interval group therapy for children with developmental language disorders: protocol for a...

With a prevalence of around 7.6%, developmental language disorders (DLDs) without comorbidities are among the most common and most frequently treated childhood disorders. Standard DLD therapy in Germany consists of individual therapy sessions once per week within speech-language therapy practices. In reality, these sessions only take place every 10-14 days on average. Online therapy may be beneficial but is not yet standard practice in Germany. Although DLD group therapy has been proven to be effective, it is rarely undertaken in Germany. The aim of this study is to compare the effectiveness of online DLD therapy for small groups of children with standard one-to-one therapy.

The effectiveness of two treatment settings is evaluated in 212 children with moderate-to-severe DLD (ages 3 years to 6 years 11 months) in the multicentre, block randomised controlled trial (RCT) THErapy ONline. Five centres in Germany participate. Children are randomly assigned to the intervention group (online interval-intensive therapy, IG1, n=106) or the control group (extensive standard in-person therapy, IG2, n=106). A speech and language assessment is conducted at baseline (study entry, T0), 12 months (T1) and 18 months (T2) after therapy start. The co-primary outcome parameters are the speech and language test scores of phonological speech sound production, expressive vocabulary, grammar production and language comprehension at T1. The secondary outcome parameters comprise two composite speech and language test scores at T1 and T2, including phonological working memory scores and the individual scores of the aforementioned tests at T2, as well as process evaluation parameters (time expenditure, resource utilisation, such as salary costs of speech-language therapists, additional costs of the online therapy, adherence to appointments and therapy acceptance).

This study has been approved by the Institutional Ethics Review Board of Westphalia-Lippe (2022-282 f-S). Parents provide written informed consent. Findings will be disseminated through presentations, peer-reviewed journals and conferences.

DRKS00030068.