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SPEAK

Speech Supplementation for Children with Cerebral Palsy

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What is being tested

AAC Speech supplementation

Behavioral
Who is being recruted

Cerebral Palsy (CP)

+ Intelligibility, Speech
+ Augmentative and Alternative Communication
From 7 to 17 Years
+10 Eligibility Criteria

See all eligibility criteria

How is the trial designed

Treatment Study

Interventional
Study Start: November 2025

See protocol details

Summary

Principal SponsorUniversity of Wisconsin, Madison
Study ContactWISC Lab
Last updated: October 9, 2025
Sourced from a government-validated database.Claim as a partner
Study start date: November 1, 2025Actual date on which the first participant was enrolled.

This study focuses on improving communication abilities in children with cerebral palsy who have difficulty being understood when they speak, a condition known as dysarthria. It aims to test a communication method called speech supplementation, which can help make speech clearer and easier to understand. The study will include 100 children with cerebral palsy, teaching them to use a communication board to point to the first letter of each word or relevant pictures while speaking. This approach can help listeners better understand what the children are saying, which is crucial for their social interactions and learning. Participants in the study will first record 60 sentences to establish a baseline of their usual speech. They will then receive one-on-one training to learn the speech supplementation technique. Once they have mastered it, they will record the same sentences using the new method. These recordings will be evaluated by two groups of listeners. The first group will transcribe the sentences to see how many words they can correctly identify, while the second group will rate how understandable the speech is on a scale. Comparing the results from before and after the intervention will show how effective the speech supplementation is in improving clarity. This could lead to better communication strategies for children with speech difficulties.

Official TitleSpeech Supplementation Strategies for Improving Intelligibility in Children With Cerebral Palsy (CP) 
Principal SponsorUniversity of Wisconsin, Madison
Study ContactWISC Lab
Last updated: October 9, 2025
Sourced from a government-validated database.Claim as a partner

Protocol

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.
Design Details
100 patients to be enrolledTotal number of participants that the clinical trial aims to recruit.
Treatment Study
These studies test new ways to treat a disease, condition, or health issue. The goal is to see if a new drug, therapy, or approach works better or has fewer side effects than existing options.

How participants are assigned to different groups/arms
In this clinical study, all participants receive the same treatment. Since there is only one group, there is no need for randomization or assignment to different arms. This type of study is often used to test a new treatment without comparing it to another.

Other Ways to Assign Participants
Randomized allocation: Participants are assigned randomly, like flipping a coin, to ensure fairness and reduce bias.
Non-randomized allocation: Participants are assigned based on specific factors, such as their medical condition or a doctor's decision.

How treatments are given to participants
In this study, all participants receive the same treatment. This approach is often used to evaluate the effects of a single intervention without comparing it to another.

Other Ways to Assign Treatments
Parallel assignment: Participants are split into separate groups, each receiving a different treatment.
Cross-over assignment: Participants switch between treatments during the study.
Factorial assignment: Participants receive different combinations of treatments.
Sequential assignment: Participants receive treatments one after another in a specific order, possibly based on individual responses.
Other assignment: Treatment assignment does not follow a standard or predefined design.

How the effectiveness of the treatment is controlled
In a non placebo-controlled study, no participants receive an inert substance (placebo) to compare outcomes. Instead, all participants receive either the experimental treatment or an alternative treatment (often the Standard of Care). This method allows researchers to compare the effects of the experimental treatment with those of a different active intervention, rather than a placebo.

Other Options
Placebo-Controlled: A placebo is used to compare the effects of the experimental treatment with those of an inert substance, isolating the true treatment effect.

How the interventions assigned to participants is kept confidential
Everyone involved in the study knows which treatment is being given. This is typically used when it's not possible or necessary to hide the treatment details from participants or researchers.

Other Ways to Mask Information
Single-blind: Participants do not know which treatment they are receiving, but researchers do.
Double-blind: Neither participants nor researchers know which treatment is given.
Triple-blind: Participants, researchers, and outcome assessors do not know which treatment is given.
Quadruple-blind: Participants, researchers, outcome assessors, and care providers all do not know which treatment is given.

Eligibility

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria: person's general health condition or prior treatments.
Conditions
Criteria
Any sexBiological sex of participants that are eligible to enroll.
From 7 to 17 YearsRange of ages for which participants are eligible to join.
Healthy volunteers not allowedIf individuals who are healthy and do not have the condition being studied can participate.
Conditions
Pathology
Cerebral Palsy (CP)
Intelligibility, Speech
Augmentative and Alternative Communication
Criteria
7 inclusion criteria required to participate
Able to produce connected speech in English, with a minimum utterance length of 3 words
Clinical dysarthria with speech intelligibility between 10-85 percent
Age between 7 and 17 years
Pass pure tone hearing screening

Show More Criteria

3 exclusion criteria prevent from participating
Vision impairment that precludes being able to see items on a communication board.
Not suitable for participation due to other reasons at the discretion of the investigators.
Failure to meet all inclusion criteria.

Study Plan

Find out more about all the medication administered in this study, their detailed description and what they involve.
Treatment Groups
Study Objectives
One single intervention group 

is designated in this study

This study does not include a placebo group 

Treatment Groups
Group I
Experimental
Children will complete a pre-test on their speech prior to learning speech supplementation strategy use, and will be taught to use speech supplementation through one-on-one teaching. They will then complete a post test on their speech while using speech supplementation.
Study Objectives
Primary Objectives

Quantify the change in speech intelligibility associated with the use of speech supplementation strategies by having listeners orthographically transcribe speech samples. Intelligibility scores are percentage calculations of the number of words identified correctly by listeners, ranging from 0 to 100 percent. Higher percentages reflect greater intelligibility, or a better understanding of what the speaker said by naive listeners.
Secondary Objectives

Listener ratings of their perception of the magnitude of change in intelligibility between pre- and post-test speaking conditions. Listeners will hear pre- and post-intervention speech samples and will indicate whether they can hear a differences and if so, how large the differences was using a 5-point likert rating scale. Higher values on the scale reflect larger perceived differences.

Study Centers

These are the hospitals, clinics, or research facilities where the trial is being conducted. You can find the location closest to you and its status.
This study has 1 location
Suspended
University of Wisconsin-Madison Waisman CenterMadison, United StatesSee the location
Recruiting soonOne Study Center