The efficacy of early language intervention in mainstream school settings: A Randomised Controlled Trial (original) (raw)
2017, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
Background: Oral language skills are a critical foundation for literacy and more generally for educational success. The current study shows that oral language skills can be improved by providing suitable additional help to children with language difficulties in the early stages of formal education. Methods: We conducted a randomized controlled trial with 394 children in England, comparing a 30-week oral language intervention programme starting in nursery (N = 132) with a 20-week version of the same programme starting in Reception (N = 133). The intervention groups were compared to an untreated waiting control group (N = 129). The programmes were delivered by trained teaching assistants (TAs) working in the children's schools/nurseries. All testers were blind to group allocation. Results: Both the 20- and 30-week programmes produced improvements on primary outcome measures of oral language skill compared to the untreated control group. Effect sizes were small to moderate (20-week...
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