Oral language skills intervention in pre‐school—a cautionary tale

Abstract

Background: While practitioners are increasingly asked to be mindful of the evidence-base of intervention programmes, evidence from rigorous trials for the effectiveness of interventions that promote oral language abilities in the early years is sparse. Aims: This study evaluates the effectiveness of a language intervention programme for children identified as having poor oral language skills in preschool classes. Methods & Procedures: A randomised controlled trial was carried out in 13 UK nursery schools. In each nursery, eight children (N = 104, mean age = 3 years 11 months) with the poorest performance on standardised language measures were selected to take part. All but one child was randomly allocated to either an intervention (N = 52) or a waiting control group (N = 51). The intervention group received a 15-week oral language programme in addition to their standard nursery curriculum. The programme was delivered by trained teaching assistants and aimed to foster vocabulary knowledge, narrative and listening skills. Outcomes & Results: Initial results revealed significant differences between the intervention and control group on measures of taught vocabulary. No group differences were found on any standardised language measure; however there were gains of moderate effect size in listening comprehension. Conclusions & Implications: The study suggests that an intervention, of moderate duration and intensity, for small groups of preschool children successfully builds vocabulary knowledge, but does not generalize to non-taught areas of language. The findings strike a note of caution about implementing language interventions of moderate duration in preschool settings. The findings also highlight the importance of including a control group in intervention studies.

Early childhood educators' knowledge about language and literacy: Associations with practice and children's learning

“…Duguay, Kenyon, Haynes, August, & Yanosky, ; Gersten et al, ). Given current challenges in facilitating educators' abilities to support young children's language development (Dickinson, ; Haley, Hulme, Bowyer‐Crane, Snowling, & Fricke, ), better understanding educators' knowledge regarding oral language and associations or lack thereof with children's language learning is an important avenue for future research.…”

The effect of linguistic comprehension instruction on generalized language and reading comprehension skills: A systematic review

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Early talk boost: A targeted intervention for three year old children with delayed language development

“…In a further study where teaching staff were less closely supported by researchers, Fricke et al (2017) continued to find positive results though less strongly than in the initial investigation. Despite these positive results, the initial weeks of the intervention in nurseries alone was not effective, a result replicated by Haley et al (2017). This may mean that the nursery stage is ineffective or that the overall effect is cumulative and requires the full 30 hour programme.…”