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Exercise Training in Children With Communication Impairments

Exercise as Treatment in Children With Communication Impairments

Who can join

Ages 5 to 9 · All sexes · Healthy volunteers welcome

Inclusion Criteria:

Children with a diagnosis of developmental language disorder (DLD) or typically developing controls will be included.

All children will meet following inclusion criteria:

* (1) between 5 and 9 years old at enrollment
* (2) from homes where the primary language spoken is English
* (3) normal hearing based on parent report and audiometric screening
* (4) typical nonverbal cognition as determined by a T-score within 1.5 standard deviations of the mean on nonverbal subtests of the Reynolds Intellectual Assessment Scales

Exclusion Criteria:

Exclusionary Criteria are:

* (1) diagnosis of disorder that significantly affects social interactions (e.g., autism), as per referral diagnosis or which is identified during initial screening or assessment phase
* (2) vision impairments that prevent participation in our experimental protocol
* (3) inability for any reason to participate in assessment and/or treatment protocols

About the study

This clinical trial study has two goals. The first goal is to establish fitness levels, participation in physical activities, and fine/gross motor abilities for children with development language disorder (DLD). DLD occurs in 1/13 children and children with DLD often have poorer fine/gross motor skills than those with typical development. The second goal is to determine whether physical exercise helps children with DLD and typical development to learn better and improve fitness and fine/gross motor abilities more than participating in restful play activities.

All children (DLD and typically developing) will undergo communication, fine/gross motor and fitness testing. Children will be randomly assigned to participate in an exercise program (n =20) or to a restful play program (n = 20). Both programs will take place 3x/week for 6 weeks and children will only participate in one of the two programs.

Children in the exercise program will do activities to train cardiovascular fitness, agility, balance, strength, and endurance while children in the restful play condition will do things like play with legos and color.

Researchers will compare changes in learning tasks and fitness levels for children (DLD and typically developing) who participated in the exercise program vs. restful play program.

What is being tested

• Exercise (behavioral)
• Restful Play (behavioral)

Sponsor: Marquette University · Participants: 40 · Started: Jul 2, 2024

Contact the study team

• Jenya Iuzzini-Seigel, PhD · Phone: 414-288-1529

Official record on ClinicalTrials.gov — NCT06340893

Locations in the U.S.

From ClinicalTrials.gov, data retrieved Sep 30, 2026. Each study sets its own eligibility; the study team decides who can join.