Motor-based Intervention for Childhood Apraxia of Speech: DTTC-Connect

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Conditions studied: Childhood Apraxia of Speech

In brief

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a complex motor speech disorder that significantly limits a child's ability to communicate in daily activities, with difficulties often persisting into adolescence and adulthood. There is solid evidence that motor-based interventions, such as Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing (DTTC), improve word production in children with CAS. Building on this strong foundation, the next critical step is to extend this work to support functional communication in connected speech, where children with CAS often continue to struggle. There is a critical need for a systematic bridge within the context of treatment from word-level practice to connected speech, as robust word-level gains often fail to generalize to other speaking contexts. This work addresses this gap by transitioning children from word- to phrase-level practice using Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing-Connect (DTTC-Connect), a novel, structured adaptation of DTTC that targets connected speech production. Our approach builds on established DTTC principles while incorporating progression to more complex utterances, offering a developmentally appropriate, research-informed pathway to functional communication. This study is a Phase II randomized controlled trial (RCT) designed to examine the efficacy of DTTC-Connect, a motor-based treatment that includes phrase-level practice to refine connected speech and support communicative participation for children with CAS. The overall objectives of this work are to test the efficacy of DTTC-Connect and document changes in speech motor control at the connected speech level in 68 children with CAS (3;6 - 12;11 years of age) who receive treatment twice a week for 8 weeks (16 sessions). The central hypothesis is that DTTC-Connect will lead to lasting improvements in phrase accuracy, speech intelligibility and speech motor control, ultimately enhancing a child's communicative participation.

Key facts

Study ID: NCT07526246
Run by: New York University
People needed: 68
Starts: 2026-09-15
Expected to finish: 2031-03-31
Last updated by the study team: 2026-06-29

Who can join

Age: 3 and older, up to 12. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: not accepted.

You may qualify if…

Diagnosis of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). The diagnosis will be made by two speech language pathologists (SLPs) who have extensive experience in the differential diagnosis of CAS.
Age between 3;6 and 12;11 years.
Normal structure of the oral-peripheral mechanism as determined by a motor speech examination using established lab protocol.
Participants must pass a hearing screening conducted at 20 dB SPL at 500, 1000, 2000 and 4000 Hz.
Not receiving speech treatment elsewhere over the course of this study, although language, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) treatment, or similar non-speech treatment, would be permitted.
Language Testing: Receptive Language Index standard score greater than or equal to 70 on the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals - Preschool 3rd edition (CELF-P3) for children 3;6-5;11 years of age, or the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals - 5th edition (CELF-5) for children 6;0-12;11 years of age.
Nonverbal Cognition Testing: Standard score greater than or equal to 70 on the Developmental Assessment of Young Children-2nd edition (DAYC-2) for children 3;6- 5;11 years of age, or the Reynolds Intellectual Assessment Scales- 2nd edition, Remote (RIAS) for children 6;0-12;11 years old.
Evidence of multi-word spontaneous speech up to five syllables in length.
English as the primary language.

You may not qualify if…

Primary dysarthria diagnosis, even if CAS is a secondary diagnosis.
Abnormal structure of the oral peripheral mechanism.
Fluency disorder, even if the child meets criteria for CAS.
Conductive or sensorineural hearing loss, even if the child meets criteria for CAS.
English is not the primary language.

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