Evaluating a phonics-based reading intervention for children with developmental language disorder – A single-blinded randomized controlled trial

Individuals with developmental language disorder (DLD) often struggle with reading, both with reading comprehension and decoding. Although decoding difficulties are common in the population with DLD, studies investigating phonics-based interventions for these individuals are sparse. This study investigated the effect of a phonics-based computer game, GraphoLearn (GL). To our knowledge, this is the first randomized controlled trial investigating the impact of a phonics-based intervention method in children with DLD. Sixty-seven children enrolled in Grades 0–4 were randomized into three groups: one intervention group playing GL, one active control group playing a math game, and one control group that received teaching as usual. The duration of the intervention was 5 weeks. Decoding ability was measured at baseline, post-intervention, and at follow-up 10–12 weeks after the intervention. The effect of the intervention was analysed using mixed linear models. The analysis showed no significant differences between the groups in terms of improvement. Instead, all groups improved their decoding scores from baseline to follow-up. For children with DLD enrolled in Grades 0–4, it seems like playing the GL game does not improve decoding ability to a greater extent than teaching as usual. However, all groups did improve their decoding scores during study participation, indicating a potential to improve reading ability in a relatively short time despite having a diagnosis of DLD.