Improving Early Years Practice through Professional Support by Speech and Language Therapists: A feasibility study
The Project
It is well-established that greater socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with weaker language skills at school entry and that these early weaknesses increase throughout primary school. The vast majority of successful interventions targeting preschool children have been highly structured and tightly time-bound, and based on prescriptive manuals and specific materials. Although some “packaged” interventions have proved popular in some local authorities and schools, there are many local authorities and schools that prefer to use less prescriptive, more tailored (‘contextualised’) approaches to supporting children’s language. The proposed research will investigate the effects of less prescriptive approaches emphasising support to practitioners by Speech and Language Therapists (SLTs).
Specifically, this research involves the small-scale pilot of a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) evaluation of preschool language interventions in two Local Authorities (LAs). Interventions focus on continuing professional development (CPD) for practitioners aimed at supporting staff in early years settings to improve their provision for children’s language development, led by SLTs in each LA.
The main aims of the project will be to investigate whether and to what extent these interventions have effects on teachers’ practice, professional knowledge and confidence, and on child communication and language outcomes, over the course of one school year (2020-21). An additional aim will be to assess the feasibility of and to provide recommendations for a larger-scale evaluation.
In partnership with the Institute for Employment Studies, who are running a parallel process evaluation.
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Project Details
Research Team
More Projects
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Pupil interactions and networks in special schoolsSeptember 2024 - August 2025This project will work with three secondary special schools to collect peer network data to better understand positive and negative interactions between special school pupils.
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Feasibility trial of an adapted anti-bullying programme for children in special schoolsOctober 2024 - September 2026This project will work with eight special schools to conduct a feasibility randomised controlled trial of anti-bullying programme KiVa-SEND.
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Effects of Education Endowment Foundation interventions on protection from COVID-19 learning lossOctober 2024 - March 2025This project investigates whether and to what extent Education Endowment Foundation interventions had protective effects against learning loss due to COVID-19 disruption.
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LangQuest-EY: A self-report educator questionnaire to assess confidence in language supporting practices in early years settingsJuly 2023 - March 2024Download the LangQuest-EY questionnaire for early years educators to report on their confidence in using language-supporting strategies.
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Effectiveness Trial for the Evaluation of the Mathematical Reasoning Programme for Year 2 Pupils Using an Online Professional Development Training ModelFebruary 2024 - March 2026The Mathematical Reasoning (MR) programme aims to promote pupils’ understanding of numbers and number sense (encompassing additive composition of number and place value, and the inverse relation between addition and subtraction) and quantitative reasoning and problem solving (different relations that can be established between quantities, encompassing part whole or additive relations, and one to many correspondence or multiplicative relations).
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NewsNew definition for bullying released to better support pupils and schoolsMay 8, 2025
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NewsNew trial will evaluate Talking Time programme for Early Years practitionersJanuary 25, 2024
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NewsReport published today provides evidence on what influences EAL learners to mitigate language learning lossMarch 17, 2021
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MediaProfessor Edward Melhuish in a TRT World Roundtable discussion on the return to schoolAugust 31, 2020
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NewsPutting children first: sharing research evidence to inform Indian education policy and practiceAugust 11, 2020