Journal article
Early language screening and intervention can be delivered successfully at scale: evidence from a cluster randomized controlled trial
- Abstract:
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Background It is well established that oral language skills provide a critical foundation for formal education. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) programme in ameliorating language difficulties in the first year of school when delivered at scale.
Methods We conducted a cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) in 193 primary schools (containing 238 Reception classrooms). Schools were randomly allocated to either a 20‐week oral language intervention or a business‐as‐usual control group. All classes (N = 5,879 children) in participating schools were screened by school staff using an automated App to assess children’s oral language skills. Screening identified 1,173 children as eligible for language intervention: schools containing 571 of these children were allocated to the control group and 569 to the intervention group.
Results Children receiving the NELI programme made significantly larger gains than the business‐as‐usual control group on a latent variable reflecting standardized measures of language ability (d = .26) and on the school‐administered automated assessment of receptive and expressive language skills (d = .32). The effects of intervention did not vary as a function of home language background or gender.
Conclusions This study provides strong evidence for the effectiveness of a school‐based language intervention programme (NELI) delivered at scale. These findings demonstrate that language difficulties can be identified by school‐based testing and ameliorated by a TA delivered intervention; this has important implications for educational and social policy.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, 295.5KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1111/jcpp.13415
Authors
- Publisher:
- Wiley
- Journal:
- Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry More from this journal
- Volume:
- 62
- Issue:
- 12
- Pages:
- 1425-1434
- Publication date:
- 2021-03-30
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-01-29
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1469-7610
- ISSN:
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0021-9630
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- West et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- © 2021 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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