A Short and Engaging Adaptive Working-Memory Intervention for Children with Developmental Language Disorder: Effects on Language and Working Memory

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read your manuscript. I found the paper very inovattive, clear and informative for the readers in general. I recommend its publication.

Best regards.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

Thank you very much for your positive comments about this paper, which we greatly appreciate.

Kind regards,

The authors

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper theme focuses on a point that contributes to the intervention of DLD children. The study design is clear and the results obtained demonstrate contributions from working memory to language, which can be added to the treatment of a DLD child, in short sessions.

Table 5 (line 712) and Table 6 (line 719): in the legend there is a number 1 that does not appear in the Tables.

As there is a lot of data, adding some figures to illustrate the performance of the groups in the tasks will facilitate the understanding of the data.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2,

Thank you for your comments and suggestions about our manuscript.  Please find your comments and our replies to each point detailed below. 

1/ The paper theme focuses on a point that contributes to the intervention of DLD children. The study design is clear and the results obtained demonstrate contributions from working memory to language, which can be added to the treatment of a DLD child, in short sessions.

Response: Thank you very much for these positive comments. 

2/ Table 5 (line 712) and Table 6 (line 719): in the legend there is a number 1 that does not appear in the Tables.

Response: Thank you for spotting this omission in our Tables.  We have added the 'number 1' to each relevant table.  In each case, the addition looks like this: B (95% CIs)¹.  (See Tables 3, 4, 5, 6).  

3/ As there is a lot of data, adding some figures to illustrate the performance of the groups in the tasks will facilitate the understanding of the data.

Response:  We are very grateful for this suggestion, which we completely agree with.  We have now added 'Figure 2', which includes 10 concise graphs illustrating each outcome measure by showing pre-intervention, post-intervention and 9-month follow-up scores for children in each of the training groups.  Please see lines 593-601 for the addition of Figure 2. 

Various additions in the text directing the reader to Figure 2, where relevant, have also been added, e.g., line 539-540:  "See Table 3 for summary regression information and Figure 2 for graphs illustrating pre-intervention, post-intervention and 9-month follow-up scores for each group."  See also lines 607-609 and lines 678-680 for similar additions to the text directing the reader to Figure 2.  

We hope this makes the findings clearer for the reader to understand. 

Thank you very much for your review and your careful comments. 

Kind regards,

The authors