For Practitioners

We are working with education and healthcare professionals to ensure that our research findings are shared and applied to practice. Our current activities are listed below. 

Evidence Briefings

• Read our evidence briefings outlining what actually works and debunking common myths about child language development. 

Case Studies

• Read case studies showcasing our work with practitioners and highlighting the importance of good quality monitoring, evaluation and training in the early years

Toolkit: Teaching modern foreign languages in multilingual key stage 2 classrooms

This toolkit is aimed at teaching professionals delivering modern foreign language (MFL) lessons to Key Stage 2 pupils in multilingual primary school settings in England. If you are currently teaching MFL to classes that have a mix of both children learning English as an Additional Language (EAL) and monolingual English speaking children, this toolkit is here to support your pedagogical practice. 

Magazine Articles 

• RCSLT Bulletin articles
• Primary Matters Magazine
• Nursery World Magazine articles
• English & Media Centre eMagazine articles
• The Conversation articles
  
• In Press study by our International Co-I Laurence Leonard Sources of misinterpretation in the input and their implications for language intervention with English-speaking children

Blogs & Newsletter

• LuCiD Blogs 
• Newsletters

Training Videos and Short Talks

• VIDEO: Evaluating interventions - this training video covers how interventions work, why it is important to evaluate interventions and describes a 'gold standard' kind of evaluation known as a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT)
• VIDEO: The Importance of the Early Years - this presentation outlines why the early years are so important for children's development and their later outcomes. It explains how research can help and how you can access this research.
• VIDEO: Advice sessions to support teaching children with Down syndrome.
  
• Watch our series of short talks about how children learn to communicate with language. 

• Our very own Prof Ben Ambridge presents a series of short films for BBC Tiny Happy People on baby development and language milestones. Each of the five short videos covers a communication milestone from a baby's first year and explains the science behind it. Watch all the videos here or jump to the milestone that interests you the most below:

  • 0-3 months: How far can newborn babies see?
  • 3-6 months: How can peekaboo help babies to learn?
  • 3-6 months: Is speaking in baby talk good for babies' language learning?
  • 6-9 months: Can you get your baby to babble more? 
  • 9-12 months: What is my baby interested in?

Working with Nurseries in the North West

We are working with nurseries in Stockport, Lancaster and Sefton to explore how we can support them to create a language enriched environment and design small research projects to address specific questions they have about language and communicative development.

We have shared some of our research findings with nursery practitioners in the area at their annual conference 2016. 

Working with Speech and Language Therapists

We have developed a workshop on specific research techniques for speech and language therapists, in collaboration with the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. Where possible, we will share any relevant materials from on our website, including comprehension and elicitation materials our researchers use that could be of use to SLTs. We have also delivered webinars as part of #SLTLearn.

External Resources

• Speech and Language UK's resources for practitioners.
• The National Literacy Trust's resources for early years sector.
• The BBC's Tiny Happy People resources to help develop children's communication skills.
• The government's Better Start for Life resources