Browsing by Person "Roulstone, S."

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Investigating the role of language in children's early educational outcomes
(UK Department of Education, 2011-06-30) Roulstone, S.; Law, James; Rush, Robert; Clegg, J.; Peters, Tim
Most children develop speech and language skills effortlessly, but some are slow to develop these skills and then go on to struggle with literacy and academic skills throughout their schooling. It is the first few years of life that are critical to their subsequent performance. This project looks at what we know about the early communication environment in a child's first two years of life, and the role this plays in preparing children for school using data from a large longitudinal survey of young people (ALSPAC - the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children). It examines the characteristics of the environment in which children learn to communicate (such as activities undertaken with children, the mother's attitude towards her baby, and the wider support available to the family) and the extent to which this affects a child's readiness for school entry (defined as their early language, reading, writing, and maths skills that they need in school). Key Findings: - There is a strong association between a child's social background and their readiness for school as measured by their scores on school entry assessments covering language, reading, maths and writing. - Language development at the age of 2 years predicts children's performance on entry to primary school. Children's understanding and use of vocabulary and their use of two or three word sentences at 2 years is very strongly associated with their performance on entering primary school. - The children's communication environment influences language development. The number of books available to the child, the frequency of visits to the library, parents teaching a range of activities, the number of toys available, and attendance at pre-school, are all important predictors of the child's expressive vocabulary at 2 years. The amount of television on in the home is also a predictor; as this time increased, so the child's score at school entry decreased. - The communication environment is a more dominant predictor of early language than social background. In the early stages of language development, it is the particular aspects of a child's communication environment that are associated with language acquisition rather than the broader socio-economic context of the family. - The child's language and their communication environment influence the child's performance at school entry in addition to their social background. Children's success at school is governed not only by their social background; the child's communication environment before their second birthday and their language at the age of two years also have a strong influence.
Mapping practice onto theory: the speech and language practitioner's construction of receptive language impairment
(Taylor & Francis, 2008-05) Law, James; Campbell, Craig; Roulstone, S.; Adams, C.; Boyle, James
Background: Receptive language impairment (RLI) is one of the most significant indicators of negative sequelae for children with speech and language disorders. Despite this, relatively little is known about the most effective treatments for these children in the primary school period. Aims: To explore the relationship between the reported practice of speech and language practitioners and the underlying rationales for the therapy that they provide. Methods & Procedures: A phenomenological approach was adopted, drawing on the experiences of speech and language practitioners. Practitioners completed a questionnaire relating to their practice for a single child with receptive language impairment within the 5-11 age range, providing details and rationales for three recent therapy activities. The responses of 56 participants were coded. All the children described experienced marked receptive language impairments, in the main associated with expressive language difficulties and/or social communication problems. Outcome & Results: The relative homogeneity of the presenting symptoms in terms of test performance was not reflected in the highly differentiated descriptions of intervention. One of the key determinants of how therapists described their practice was the child's age. As the child develops the therapists appeared to shift from a 'skills acquisition' orientation to a 'meta-cognitive' orientation, that is they move away from teaching specific linguistic behaviours towards teaching children strategies for thinking and using their language. A third of rationales refer to explicit theories but only half of these refer to the work of specific authors. Many of these were theories of practice rather than theories of deficit, and of those that do cite specific theories, no less than 29 different authors were cited many of whom might best be described as translators of existing theories rather than generators of novel theories. Conclusions: While theories of the deficit dominate the literature they appear to play a relatively small part in the eclectic practice of speech and language therapists. Theories of therapy may develop relatively independent of theories of deficit. While this may not present a problem for the practitioner, whose principal focus is remediation, it may present a problem for the researcher developing intervention efficacy studies, where the theory of the deficit will need to be well-defined in order to describe both the subgroup of children under investigation and the parameters of the deficit to be targeted in intervention. © 2008 Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists.
The Role of Pragmatics in Mediating the Relationship Between Social Disadvantage and Adolescent Behavior
(2015) Law, James; Rush, Robert; Clegg, Judy; Peters, Tim; Roulstone, S.
Objective: The relationship between social disadvantage, behavior, and communication in childhood is well established. Less is known about how these 3 interact across childhood and specifically whether pragmatic language skills act as a mediator between early social disadvantage and adolescent behavior. Method: The sample was the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a representative birth cohort initially recruited in England in 1991/1992 and followed through to adolescence and beyond. Of the original 13,992 live births, data were available for 2926 children at 13 years. Univariable analysis was first used to identify sociodemographic and other predictors of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) at 13 years. The mediational role of the pragmatics scale of the Children's Communication Checklist (CCC) at 9 years was then tested, controlling for age, gender, and IQ. Results: There was evidence of both a direct effect from social disadvantage (path C-_) to SDQ Total Behavior Score at 13 years (-.205; p < .001) and an indirect effect from social disadvantage to SDQ Total (-.225; p < .001) after adjusting for the CCC pragmatics scale as a mediator. The latter represents a reduction in the magnitude of the unadjusted effect or total effect- (-.430), demonstrating that the pragmatics scale partially mediates the relationship of early social disadvantage and adolescent behavior (even after controlling for other covariates). The same relationship held for all but the pro-social subscale of the SDQ. Conclusion: The results provide evidence to suggest that there maybe a causal relationship between these variables, suggesting that interventions targeting pragmatic skills have the potential to reduce adolescent behavioral symptoms.