Research & evidence
The research behind our screening apps
LanguageScreen was developed by a research team led by Professor Charles Hulme at the University of Oxford and is the product of extensive research. LanguageScreen was developed by the same research team responsible for the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) programme. We created LanguageScreen because we believe it is essential for teachers to be able to accurately assess children’s language skills.
LanguageScreen was used in a study evaluating the effectiveness of the NELI programme in 193 schools (involving testing roughly 6,000 children). In this study, LanguageScreen was effective in allowing school staff to identify children with language difficulties and also provided an accurate measure of the improvements in children’s language skill’s following the NELI programme.
The research team behind Language Screen and NELI are continuing to develop methods to help schools identify and ameliorate children’s learning difficulties including two new apps, MathsScreen and ReadingScreen, due to launch soon.
OxEd’s founder, Professor Charles Hulme, discusses interventions to improve children’s early language skills in this seminar for LuCID, the ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development.
Publications
The Science of Reading: A Handbook (2nd edition, 2022)
Edited by OxEd’s Maggie Snowling and Charles Hulme, with Kate Nation
The Science of Reading presents the most recent advances in the study of reading and related skills. Bringing together contributions from a multidisciplinary team of experts, this comprehensive volume reviews theoretical approaches, stage models of reading, cross-linguistic studies of reading, reading instruction, the neurobiology of reading, and more. Divided into six parts, the book explores word recognition processes in skilled reading, learning to read and spell, reading comprehension and its development, reading and writing in different languages, developmental and acquired reading disorders, and the social, biological, and environmental factors of literacy.
Key research papers
Early language intervention improves behavioral adjustment in school: Evidence from a cluster randomized trial
(Gillian West, Arne Lervåg, Margaret J. Snowling, Elizabeth Buchanan-Worster, Mihaela Duta, Charles Hulme)
Journal of School Psychology (2022)
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- This study investigated the effects of an oral language intervention (NELI) on children’s behavioural adjustment in school.
- It was based on findings from a cluster randomized trial in 193 primary schools.
- Children receiving NELI showed significantly greater improvements in behavioural adjustment than the business-as-usual control group.
Early language screening and intervention can be delivered successfully at scale: evidence from a cluster randomized controlled trial
(Gillian West, Margaret J. Snowling, Arne Lervåg, Elizabeth Buchanan-Worster, Mihaela Duta, Alexandra Hall, Henrietta McLachlan, and Charles Hulme)
The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (2021)
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- This study provides strong evidence from a cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) in 193 primary schools for the effectiveness of a school-based language testing and intervention programme (NELI) delivered at scale.
- A ten-minute LanguageScreen test administered by school staff was found to be comparable in accuracy to a 30-minute language assessment, using standardised tests, conducted by professional speech and language therapists.
- Children receiving NELI made significantly larger gains in their language skills than the control group.
- The effects of intervention did not vary as a function of home language background or gender.
Children’s Language Skills Can Be Improved: Lessons From Psychological Science for Educational Policy
(Charles Hulme, Margaret J. Snowling, Gillian West, Arne Lervåg, and Monica Melby-Lervåg)
Current Directions in Psychological Science (2020)
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- Oral language is crucial for social interaction and for learning in the classroom; it also provides the foundation for reading comprehension.
- Children with language difficulties are at high risk of educational failure.
- Recent studies have demonstrated that it is possible to produce significant improvements in children’s oral language through targeted language interventions.
- There is also evidence that effects of language intervention can produce improvements in reading comprehension.
- These findings have important implications for educational policy and practice.
OxEd research talks
Speech and Developmental Language Disorders – Judy Dunn International Conference 2022
17th November 2022, online
Speaker: Professor Charles Hulme
Title: Early Language Intervention is Effective and Important for Improving Educational Outcomes
Dyscalculia & Literacy Conference 2022 – Focus on your learner: Strengths & Challenges
24th November 2022, Swindon
Speaker: Professor Charles Hulme
Title: Identifying and Ameliorating Children’s Language Difficulties
researchED Oxford
26th November 2022
Speaker: Professor Charles Hulme
Title: Identifying and Remediating Children’s Language Difficulties
