February 2016

Foundation years and UK Government’s life chances strategy: joint inquiry

The Communication Trust

The Communication Trust is a coalition of over 50 not-for-profit organisations. Working together we support everyone who works with children and young people in England to support their speech, language and communication. Our work focuses on supporting children and young people who struggle to communicate because they have speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) as well as supporting all children and young people to communicate to the best of their ability.

The relationship between early years education and the life chances strategy

Vocabulary at age five has been found to be the best predictor (from a range of measures at age five and ten) of whether children who experienced social deprivation in childhood were able to ‘buck the trend’ and escape poverty in later adult life.[1]Language skills are a critical factor in social disadvantage and in the intergenerational cycles that perpetuate poverty. Poor language skills are the key reason why, by the age of 22 months, a more able child from a low income home will begin to be overtaken in their developmental levels by an initially less able child from a high-income home.It also explains why by the age of five, the gap has widened still more.[2]

Closing the gap between the speech, language and communication development of the country’s disadvantaged children and their peers should be central to the government’s life chances strategy. There is strong evidence to show that the development of speech, language and communication in the early years has a profound and far reaching impact on a child’s life chances.

The following research findings are of particular importance:

Poverty and speech and language development in the early years

  • In some areas, particularly areas of social deprivation, between 40 and 50% of children are starting school with delayed language.[3]
  • Most recent 2014/15 DfE EYFS data shows that only 51% of pupils eligible for free school meals achieve a good level of development (including language and communication development) at the end of EYFS, compared to 69% for all other pupils.[4]
  • There is a significant difference between the levels of children’s school readiness across the most and least deprived local authorities.[5]
  • There is a clear social gradient associated with early language delay; the median language scores in each social group decline withincreased social deprivation.[6]
  • Children eligible for Free School Meals are more than twice as likely to have language difficulties than their peers.[7]

The longer term impact of poor language development in the early years

  • Research in neuroscience shows the pivotal importance of the first three and a half years of a child’s life in determining their life chances.[8]
  • At two years old, children’s understanding and use of vocabulary as well astheir use of two-three word sentences predicts their performance when they begin primary school.[9]
  • At the age of six there is a gap of a few months between the reading age of children who had good oral language skills at five, and those with poor oral language skills at five. By the time they are 14, this gap has widened to five years difference in reading age.[10]
  • After controlling for a range of other factors that might have played a role(mother’s educational level, overcrowding, low birth weight, parent a poor reader, etc), researchers found that children who had normal non-verbal skills but a poor vocabulary at age five were one and a half times more likely to be poor readers or have mental health problems at age 34. They were also more than twice as likely to be unemployed as children who had normally developing language at age 5.[11]
  • Research has identified that two thirds of seven to fourteenyear olds with serious behaviour problems hadlanguage difficulties.[12]Furthermore, pupils excluded from school are more likely to have SEN, including SLCN,[13] and upwards of 60% of young people in the youth justice sector have SLCN, many of whom have never been identified as struggling with this aspect of their learning.[14]
  • In the EYFS there is an attainment gap of 46% between pupils with no SEN achieving a good level of development, and those who have been identified as having SLCN as their primary need.[15] This trend continues throughout a child’s journey through education: just 15.8% of pupils with SLCN achieved 5+ GCSEs at grades A* to C including English and mathematics GCSEs. This is compared to 64.2% of pupils with no identified SEN – an attainment gap of 48.4%.[16]

Closing the gap between the development of disadvantaged children with speech language and communication needs and their peers

The strongest predictor of children’s language development is the quantity[17]and the quality[18] of the language children hear in their environment. So it is not socio-economicdisadvantage itself that causes slow language development, but the fact that disadvantage is so often associated with and an impoverished communicative environment.[19]

In fact, research shows that activities that improve a child’s communication environment (the early ownership of books, trips to the library, attendance atpre-school, parents teaching a range of activities andthe number of toys and books available) area more important predictor of language development at two, and school entry ‘baseline’ scores at four, than socio-economic background alone.[20] In other words, all and any activities that improve the communicative environment of disadvantaged children should help to close the gap.

It is also important that parents know what to expect of their child’s language development and how to nurture it; parental attitudes towards learning in the preschool years have a substantial impact on children’s later school readiness.[21] However, in a survey run by The Communication Trust in 2011, only 20% parents knew that what the expected level of language development for a three year old is.[22]

It is essential that the importance of practitioner and parental awareness of speech, language and communication development is emphasisedbecause early intervention is key to giving disadvantaged children an equal start in life. Evidence indicates that high quality early years provision can have a ‘protective effect’, reducing the chances of both children with SEND, including SLCN, and those growing up in poverty from falling behind their peers.[23] So, with the right support at the earliest opportunity, many children with delayed language can be supported to ‘catch up’. However, this requires a real and practical commitment from the government to invest in support for early language at universal, targeted and specialist support levels.

Recommendations

Recommendation one

It is essential that the life chances strategy includes plans to develop parental understanding of the need for ‘communication rich’ early years experiences in their children’s early years. This should be done directly through parenting programmes and also as part of developing the early years workforce to more effectively support parents.

Recommendation two

Evidence suggests that attending an early years setting improved children’s academic and social outcomes. An early start (before aged three) and attending a high quality setting are particularly beneficial:[24]

  • Those who attended pre-school, compared to those who did not, had better attainment in language, pre-reading and early number concepts
  • An earlier start (under three years) is related to better development for language, pre-reading, early number concepts and nonverbal reasoning
  • The quality of the pre-school was identified as positive for a range of academic outcomes but the effects were strongest for pre-reading.

Evaluation of the 2006 – 2008 disadvantaged two year olds pilot project presented clear evidence that the quality of settings that disadvantaged two year olds accessed in the project, was an essential factor in making a positive difference to their outcomes, specifically with regard to their language skills.[25] It is vital that learning from this pilot project and broader evidence around what works to support good development in the early years directly informs current and future approaches to providing childcare and early education for young children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The government must seek to embed and extend evidence about positive approaches to supporting disadvantaged children’s speech, language and communication development, and wider outcomes, in current and future plans and approaches to providing childcare and early education places to maximise the impact this has on disadvantaged children.

Recommendation three

In addition to the evidence highlighted above, there is strong evidence to suggest that better qualified early years staff are able to support children’s speech, language and communication development more effectively.[26]However, only 20% of the early years workforce are qualified to Level 3.Considering the profound impact of speech, language and communication development, it is essential that workforce development in this area is prioritised.

All settings with a high intake of children from disadvantaged backgrounds should be required to ensure all staff have training and professional development in speech, language and communication development and each setting has staff members qualified in speech, language and communication at Level 3 (either as part of a broader EY qualification or as a standalone qualification). Early Years Pupil Premium could effectively be used to support this training and development.

Recommendation four

As reforms to welfare conditionality are implemented and benefits are capped in such a way that may require disadvantaged parents to work from when their children are very young, the focus on quality early education mustbe maintained. Department for Work and Pensions’ impact assessment[27]predicts that up to 220,000 additional children could enter childcare settings from age three. The majority of these children will be from disadvantaged backgrounds and the quality of their early years education will be essential.

It is essential to ensurethat providing quality early education experiences for disadvantaged children is prioritised appropriately alongside ensuring parents are enabled to work.

Recommendation five

The 2-2 ½ health review and the early years progress check have a key role to play in the identification of children with speech, language and communication needs. Whether these reviews happen separately across health and education or are conducted as part of an integrated review process, it’s essential that the practitioners undertaking these reviews are able to identify where children are not meeting expected milestones in their speech, language and communication development.

Poor early identification means that children are missed, which then has an impact on their attainment, literacy skills, behaviour and relationships, which can mean that the cycle of deprivation continues. Evidence shows that inconsistencies in approaches to identification can particularly affect children from low income families.[28]

Where children are identified early and the correct support is put in place, children can ‘catch up’, therefore minimising the impact of their speech, language and communication delay. If children with language delay do not receive timely support, their difficulties will continue and can adversely affect their academic achievement and social relationships.[29]

The extent to which disadvantaged children with speech, language and communication needs can be identified and effectively supported should be mapped against the current early years landscape, taking into account the changing role of Children’s Centres, the expansion to childcare provision and the two year old progress check.

Conclusion

In this response we have clearly presented the central role that children’s speech, language and communication development plays in determining their life chances from their earliest years, throughout education and into adult life. We’ve drawn on robust evidence from both the speech, language and communication needs research community but also from the government’s own evidence base and we have set out some important recommendations which must be addressed in the Life Chances strategy to ensure it has the maximum impact for children and families from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Communication Trust would be very happy to provide any additional information required by this inquiry, or to discuss anything in more detail if that would be helpful.

[1] Blanden J (2006) Bucking the Trend – What enables those who are disadvantaged in childhood to succeed later in life? London: Department for Work and Pensions

2 Feinstein (1998), Pre-school educational inequality? British children in the 1970 cohort, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE, London

[3]James Law, Kirsty McBean and Robert Rush ‘Communication skills in a population of primary school-aged children raised in an area of pronounced social disadvantage’ International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, November-December 2011, VOL. 46, NO. 6, 657–664

[4] SFR 36/2015:Early Years Foundation Stage Profile results in England, 2015,13 October 2015

[5] NCB (2015) Poor Beginnings: Health inequalities among young children across England

[6] Law et al (2013) Early Language Delays in the UK. Save the Children

[7]Dockrell J, Ricketts J&Lindsay G (2012): Understanding speech, language and communication needs: Profiles of need andprovision

Children with special educational needs in England: January 2015. London: DfE

Roulstone, S. et al (2011) Investigating the role of language in children’s early educational outcomes DfE Research Report 134

[8] Suskind, D., (2015) Thirty Million Words: Building a Child’s Brain, Penguin Random House

[9] Roulstone, S et al (2011) Investigating the role of language in children’s early educational outcomes

[10] Hirsch (1996) The Effects of Weaknesses in Oral Language on Reading Comprehension Growthcited in Torgesen, J. (2004). Current issues in assessment and intervention for younger and older students. Paper presented at the NASP Workshop.

[11] Law, J. et al (2010) Modelling developmental language difficulties from school entry into adulthood. Journal of speech, language and hearing research, 52, 1401-1416

[12] Cohen, N., Barwick, M., Horodezky, N., Vallance, D. & Im, N. (1998). Language achievement, and cognitive processing in psychiatrically disturbed children with previously unidentified and unsuspected language impairments. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry,39, 865–877

[13] Clegg, J. (2004) Language and Behaviour: an exploratory study of pupils in an exclusion unit Proceedings of the British Psychological Society Developmental Section Annual Conference, Leeds, September

[14] Bercow, J. (2008) The Bercow Report: A Review of Services for Children and Young People (0–19) with Speech, Language

and Communication Needs DCSF Publications

[15] SFR 36/2015:Early Years Foundation Stage Profile results in England, 2015,13 October 2015

[16]Children with special educational needs in England: January 2015. London: DfE

[17] Ambridge, B., Rowland, C.F., Theakston, A.L. & Kidd, E.J. (2015). The ubiquity of frequency effects in first language acquisition. Journal of Child Language, 42(2), 239-73

[18] McGillion ML, Herbert JS, Pine JM, Keren-Portnoy T, Vihman MM & Matthews DE (2013) Supporting Early Vocabulary Development: What Sort of Responsiveness Matters?. IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development, 5(3), 240-248.

[19]Hoff E (2003) The specificity of environmental influence: Socioeconomic status affects early vocabulary development via maternal speech. Child Development, 74(5):1368–1378

[20]Roulstone, S. et al (2011) Investigating the role of language in children’s early educational outcomes DfE Research Report 134

[21]Diamond, K. E., Reagan, A. J., & Bandyk, J. E. (2000). Parents’ conceptions of kindergarten readiness: Relationships with race, ethnicity, and development. Journal of Educational Research, 94(2).

[22] OnePoll (2011) Hello launch survey- to understand people’s perceptions of general communication development and those affected by long term communication difficulties.

[23] Sylva, K. Et al (2012) EPPSE 3-14, Department for Communities, Schools and Families. London.

[24] Brenda Taggart, Kathy Sylva, Edward Melhuish, Pam Sammons and Iram Siraj (2015)Effective pre-school, primary and secondary education project (EPPSE 3-16+) How pre-school influences children and young people's attainment and developmental outcomes over time

[25] Smith, R. Et al. (2009) Early Education Pilot for Two Year Old Children – Evaluation. National Centre for Social Research

[26] Nutbrown, C. (2012) Foundations for quality - The independent review of early education and childcare qualifications. Crown Copyright.

[27] Department for Work and Pensions (2015) Welfare Reform and Work Bill: Impact Assessment of the change in conditionality for responsible carers on Universal Credit,

[28] Sylva, K. Et al (2012) EPPSE 3-14, Department for Communities, Schools and Families. London.

[29]Sage, R (2005) Communicating with students who have learning and behaviour difficulties: A continuing professional development programme Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties Vol 10 No 4.