Intervention for children with language impairments: a model of evidence‐based outcome research

Abstract

Over the past 30 years successive governments in the UK have endeavoured to make the statutory framework suitable for children with special educational needs (SEN). More recently, efforts have been made to personalise children's learning, making educational experience more innovative and responsive to the diversity of needs in schools. A drive is emerging in health and education to develop and evaluate intervention strategies for children with language impairments (LIs), which is both methodologically challenging and rewarding. The current review demonstrates difficulties encountered with using evidence-based (evidence-related) outcome research involving children with LIs. Many studies have inherent methodological problems such as small sample sizes, ill-matched groups and designs that are difficult to replicate or compare. Such approaches are unlikely to yield significant results, or if they do, it is difficult to devise clear guidance regarding choice of intervention strategies. In the light of these difficulties, theoretical, methodological and practical issues are discussed herein and a model is proposed to assist in enabling interventions to be identified, evaluated in a robust manner, and the results shared with educators. We suggest that the use of a process-driven model ensures a more rigorous approach when undertaking large-scale systematic, evidence-based research into the effective approaches to teaching children not only with LIs but across the field of special needs education. 'Provision for children with speech and language (SL) needs in England and Wales: facilitating communication between education and health services: the parent perspective.

An exploration into how the impact of interventions for pupils with special educational needs can be sustainable and support long term progress

“…Structured interviews with staff highlighted that a wide range of sources were drawn on to evidence progress and that schools valued the importance of a much wider, holistic view of progress, reaching beyond attainment data (Rix et al ., ). Furthermore, schools valued the use of specific short term target setting as a means to identifying and celebrating progress (Hattie &Timperley, ; Locke & Latham, ; Parkinson & Humphrey, ). Where targets were not specific, this led to difficulties in identifying and agreeing on progress.…”

“…There is much research in relation to the effectiveness of setting targets as a means of measuring progress (Locke & Latham, ; Hattie & Timperley, ; Parkinson and Humphrey, ). Hattie &Timperley () highlight research that suggests specific goals generally make success criteria more evident and identify how the gap between current and intended learning may be reduced (p. 86–89).…”

“…Locke and Latham () also identify the importance of specificity in relation to goal setting, suggesting that specific and challenging goals lead to a higher level of performance than vague, easy to achieve goals (p. 265). Furthermore, Parkinson and Humphrey () argue that any measure of success needs to be based on “visibly robust, replicable and definitively measurable” outcomes, demonstrated through the meeting of targets (p.4). In this respect, the capacity of schools to define and subsequently evaluate measurable outcomes for these pupils is key to sustaining progress long term.…”

“…Finally, a further key factor in sustaining progress is the need to adapt interventions over time, as a result of the ‘assess, plan, do, review’ cycle (DfE & DoH, ). Parkinson and Humphrey () suggest that intervention needs to be seen as a dynamic process which will necessarily require ongoing refinement in order to meet the changing needs of the child (p.4). Furthermore, Timmins and Miller () highlight the need for schools to understand how and why their efforts to achieve particular outcomes work and why they do not (p.16).…”

“…A significant finding from this research related to sustainability, the continued progress of the pupil once intervention has finished and the school's capacity to maintain this over time. Indeed, the strength and success of an intervention is not simply whether outcomes for the pupil have been achieved, but whether or not outcomes can be retained in the long term (Parkinson and Humphrey, ).…”