Not Yet Identified: The knowledge, skills, and training needs of early years professionals in relation to children's speech and language development

Empowering early years workers to identify and target areas of difficulty in pre‐school children

“…Thus, early systematic screening offers a potentially cost-effective way to begin to attack the underachievement associated with disadvantage by reducing the number of children needing to be referred to external specialists for help. This project reinforces the call by Mroz and Hall (2003) for the provision of more in-service training to support early years practitioners in developing their skills in systematic screening-not just in the area of speech and language, but across a range of areas of development. All of the schools participating in this project are continuing to use the scheme.…”

“…Mroz and Hall (2003) found that 31% of early years practitioners had no strategy for the assessment of speech and language difficulties and that only 6.1% of those who did have a strategy used published schemes. The low incidence of systematic assessment in the speech and language domain raises further concerns that other domains (e.g.…”

“…They can help us to identify those children at risk of problems in school later on and can provide additional information about a child's readiness for learning and indications of what type of intervention might be effective. Mroz and Hall (2003) reveal that, while early years practitioners are aware of the need for early identification of children's difficulties (in this case, in the domain of communication), they lack the tools with which to perform this identification. Mroz and Hall identify access to, and provision of, post-qualification training to support the assessment process as a key area for development.…”

Early childhood educators’ competences for supporting children's academic language skills in Germany

“…They also explicitly require early childhood educators to perform supportive language training with children at risk or at least to screen the abilities of individual children for language training placement decisions (see Mroz & Hall, 2003, for similar standards in the UK).…”

Profile of Australian preschool children with speech sound disorders at risk for literacy difficulties

“…Teachers frequently indicate that they have difficulty identifying these children with speech and language difficulties, and knowing how to support them (Dockrell & Lindsay, 2001;Marshall, Ralph, & Palmer, 2002;McLeod & McKinnon, 2010;Mroz & Hall, 2003).…”