Speech and Arm Combined Exergame

Recruiting now · Not applicable

Conditions studied: Cerebral Palsy (CP), Dysarthria

In brief

The purpose of this study is to develop innovative home therapy games to train the weak arm and improve speech intelligibility (clarity) of children with hemiplegia from cerebral palsy. The investigators are exploring the effects of these therapy games and how they change the children's speech, hand movement, and brain activation. 15 children who are 8-17 years old will be recruited for this study. These children should have a diagnosis of cerebral palsy, mild to moderate speech issues but use speech as the primary mode of communication, mild to moderate movement difficulty and muscle spasticity, adequate hearing (pass a hearing screening), and be able to follow simple task-related directions. Children who have severe vision impairment that limits the child's ability to interact with the entire computer screen, have severe arm weakness so they cannot move their arm enough to interact with the computer games, have severe increase in tone in their weak arm, or have difficulty following instructions or paying attention to computer video games for at least 10 minutes cannot participate in this study. The therapy games will take 8 weeks to finish at home. Each child will play these games for 30 minutes each day, 5 days per week. In addition, children will come to the lab 4 times for speech and hand movement assessment: (1) 1st assessment takes place immediately before the child start to play the video games. (2) 2nd assessment takes place 4 weeks (midpoint) after the child starts to play the games. (3) 3rd assessment takes place immediately after the video games are finished. (4) 4th assessment takes place 6 weeks after the video games are finished. Each assessment should take about 2 hours to complete in the Rutgers movement lab or at Rutgers SLP Clinic. A total of 15 children will take part in this research study. The research will last for 2 years overall.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT06817941

Run by

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

People needed

15

Starts

2025-06-01

Expected to finish

2027-08-01

Last updated by the study team

2026-06-12

Who can join

Age: 8 and older, up to 17. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: not accepted.

You may qualify if…

• (1) diagnosis of CP
• (2) age between 8-17 years (i.e., pediatric age)
• (3) use speech as the primary mode of communication
• (4) mild to moderate dysarthria
• (5) Manual Ability Classification System (MACS) level I to III
• (6) Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) level I to IV
• (7) mild to moderate muscle spasticity of the arm with a Modified Tardieu Scale of 0-3
• (8) pass bilateral pure-tone hearing screening at 25 dB HL (at 500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz)
• (9) able to follow simple task-related directions, including repeating short phrases.

You may not qualify if…

• (1) severe vision impairment that limits the child's ability to interact with the entire computer screen
• (2) dyskinetic CP or spastic diplegia
• (3) English is not their first or primary language.

Where it is running

• Rutgers School of Health Professions — Newark, New Jersey, United States (enrolling)

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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