Nuffield Early Language Intervention (30 weeks)
The Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) (30 weeks) is an oral language programme. It is a targeted programme for children between the ages of 3 and 6. It is delivered in nursery and the first year of primary school (reception).
The programme is targeted at children who show weakness in their oral language skills and are, therefore, at risk of experiencing difficulty in education.
It begins with 10 weeks of learning while children are in nursery, followed by a further 20 weeks of learning while children are in reception. The component in reception contains the same content as the 20-week NELI programme.
The intervention is delivered by trained teaching assistants. Sessions focus on improving children’s vocabulary, developing narrative skills, encouraging active listening and building confidence in independent speaking.
EIF Programme Assessment
Child outcomes
This programme can affect outcomes for children in Active and healthy, physical and mental wellbeing.
According to the best available evidence for this programme's impact, it can achieve the following positive outcomes for children:
Enhancing school achievement & employment
Improved oral language
based on study 1
- Statement: Increase in oral language ability (measured using a composite of vocabulary, grammar, and listening scales)
- Score: 12
- Timeframe: Immediately after the intervention
- Statement: Increase in oral language ability (measured using a composite of vocabulary, grammar, and listening scales)
- Score: 12
- Timeframe: 6 months later
based on study 2
Improved taught vocabulary
based on study 1
- Statement: 0.76-point improvement on the picture naming task
- Score: 13
- Timeframe: Immediately after the intervention
- Statement: 0.68-point improvement on the picture naming task
- Score: 30
- Timeframe: 6 months later
based on study 1
- Statement: 2.41-point improvement on the definition asking task
- Score: 12
- Timeframe: Immediately after the intervention
- Statement: 1.39-point improvement on the definition asking task
- Score: 21
- Timeframe: 6 months later
Improved narrative skills
based on study 2
Improved phoneme awareness
based on study 2
Improved reading comprehension
based on study 2
This programme also has evidence of supporting positive outcomes for couples, parents or families that may be relevant to a commissioning decision. Please see About the evidence for more detail.
Who is it for?
The best available evidence for this programme relates to the following age-groups:
Preschool Primary school
How is it delivered?
The best available evidence for this programme relates to implementation through these delivery models:
- Individual
- Group
Where is it delivered?
The best available evidence for this programme relates to its implementation in these settings:
- Children's centre or early-years setting
- Primary school
How is it targeted?
The best available evidence for this programme relates to its implementation as:
- Targeted indicated
Where has it been implemented?
- United Kingdom
Ireland provision
Ireland evaluation
About the programme
What happens during the delivery?
How is it delivered?
- Nuffield Early Language Intervention (30 weeks) is delivered by one trained teaching assistant. It begins with 30 sessions over 10 weeks in nursery, comprising three 20-minute sessions delivered to groups of 2–4 children each week. It is followed by 100 sessions over 20 weeks in primary school, comprising three 30-minute group sessions (to groups of 3–5 children) and two 15-minute individual sessions each week.
What happens during the intervention?
- The mixture of small group and individual sessions focus on improving children’s vocabulary, developing narrative skills, encouraging active listening and building confidence in independent speaking.
- In the last 10 weeks, activities promoting phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge are introduced.
- Children develop their vocabulary and language skills within a structured framework that follows established principles for teaching listening, vocabulary and narrative.
- Narrative work gives children the opportunity to practise taught vocabulary in connected speech and introduces them to key story elements and the sequencing of events while encouraging expressive language and grammatical competence.
What are the implementation requirements?
Who can deliver it?
- The practitioner who delivers this programme is a teaching assistant with NFQ-5 level qualifications.
What are the training requirements?
- Practitioners have two days of programme training. Booster training of practitioners is not required.
How are the practitioners supervised?
- Practitioner supervision is not required.
What are the systems for maintaining fidelity?
Programme fidelity is maintained through the following processes:
- Training manual
- Other printed material
- Face-to-face training.
Is there a licensing requirement?
There is no licence required to run this programme.
How does it work? (Theory of Change)
How does it work?
- Oral language skills are a critical foundation for educational success as well as for wider psycho-social well-being.
- This targeted intervention improves the oral language skills of children entering school with poor language.
- In the short term, children improve both expressive and receptive language skills.
- In the longer term, lasting improvements in oral language places the children at lower risk of reading failure and enables them to benefit fully from their education.
Intended outcomes
- Active and healthy, physical and mental wellbeing
- Achieving in all areas of learning and development
Contact details
Professor Charles Hulme
University of Oxford
charles.hulme@education.ox.ac.uk
http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/nuffield-early-language-intervention
https://www.elklan.co.uk/neli/about-neli
https://global.oup.com/education/content/primary/series/nuffield-intervention/?region=uk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10q6WMFnmzo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTrCEaW52Jw
About the evidence
Nuffield Early Language Intervention (30 weeks) has evidence from at least one rigorously conducted RCT along with evidence from an additional comparison group study.
Consequently, the programme receives a 3+ rating overall.
Study 1
| Citation: | Fricke et al., 2017 and Sibieta, Kotecha, & Skipp, 2016 |
| Design: | RCT |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Sample: | 394 pupils with an average age of 3.8 years and standardised language scores in the low-average range. 49% were female and 29% were eligible for free school meals. |
| Timing: | Post-test; 6-month follow-up |
| Child outcomes: |
|
| Other outcomes: | |
| Study rating: | 3 |
Fricke, S., Burgoyne, K., Bowyer-Crane, C., Kyriacou, M., Zosimodou, A., Maxwell, L., Lervåg, A., Snowling, M.J., Hulme, C. (2017). The efficacy of early language intervention in mainstream school settings: a randomized control trial. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 58:10, 1141–1151.
Available at:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jcpp.12737
Sibieta, L., Kotecha, M., & Skipp, A. (2016). Nuffield Early Language Intervention: Evaluation Report and Executive Summary. Education Endowment Foundation.
Available at:
https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED581138
Study design and sample
This study is a rigorously conducted RCT.
This study involved random assignment of children to Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) (30 weeks), a 20-week version of NELI and a waiting control group.
This study was conducted in the UK, with a sample of children who showed weakness in their oral language skills. The sample recruited had standardised language scores in the low-average range with a high proportion having clinically significant language difficulties. The average age of the full sample was 3.8 years, 49% were female and 29% were eligible for free school meals.
Measures
- Oral language was measured using a composite measure consisting of vocabulary, grammatical and listening comprehension tests (direct assessment). These included, for vocabulary: the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF) Expressive Vocabulary subtest, the Information Score from the Renfrew Action Picture Test (APT) and the British Picture Vocabulary Scale (BPVS); for grammar: the CELF Sentence Structure subtest and the APT Grammar Score; for listening comprehension, children were asked to listen to two short stories adapted from the York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension (YARC) and answer questions about them.
- Taught vocabulary was measured by using picture naming and asking children for definitions of words, based on a random selection of the vocabulary taught during the programmes (direct assessment).
- Early literacy skills were measured using the Letter-Sound Knowledge subtest from the YARC (direct assessment).
- Word-level reading: Word level reading accuracy was measured using the YARC Early Word Reading subtest (direct assessment).
- Reading comprehension was assessed using two beginner passages from the YARC Passage Reading test (direct assessment).
Findings (for NELI 30 weeks)
This study identified statistically significant positive impact on a number of child outcomes.
This includes:
- Oral language (at post-test and at 6-month follow-up)
- Taught vocabulary (at post-test and at 6-month follow-up).
Study 2
| Citation: | Fricke, Bowyer‐Crane, Haley, Hulme, & Snowling, 2013 |
| Design: | RCT |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Sample: | 180 children with a mean age of 4 years and weakness in oral language skills |
| Timing: | Post-test; 6-month follow-up |
| Child outcomes: |
|
| Other outcomes: | |
| Study rating: | 2 |
Fricke, S., Bowyer‐Crane, C., Haley, A. J., Hulme, C., & Snowling, M. J. (2013). Efficacy of language intervention in the early years. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 54(3), 280-290.
Available at:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.801.2192&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Study design and sample
This study is an RCT.
This study involved random assignment of children to a Nuffield Early Language Intervention group or a waiting control group.
This study was conducted in the UK, with a sample of children with a mean age of 4 years, all of whom had weakness in their oral language skills. No other demographic information is provided.
Measures
Language skills
Grammatical skills were measured using the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF) Preschool II UK Sentence Structure, The Renfrew Action Picture Test (Grammar Score and Information Score) and the CELF Preschool II UK Word Structure (all direct assessment).
Vocabulary knowledge was measured using the CELF Preschool IIUK Expressive Vocabulary test (direct assessment).
Listening comprehension was measured by children listening to two short stories and answering questions about them (direct assessment).
Narrative skills were measured using a story retelling task (Squirrel Story) to derive three scores: mean length of utterance in words (MLUw), the number of words used (NW) and the number of different words used (NDW) retelling the story (direct assessment).
The vocabulary taught in the Nursery intervention was measured using Expressive Picture Naming and Receptive Picture Selection (direct assessment).
The vocabulary taught in the Reception intervention was measured using Picture Naming and Definitions task (direct assessment).
Phonological awareness
Onset awareness was measured using an Alliteration Matching task (Carroll & Snowling, 2001) (direct assessment).
Phenome awareness was measured using the York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension (YARC) Sound Isolation task and the Sound Linkage Segmentation, Blending and Deletion task (both direct assessment).
Literacy skills
Literacy skills were measured using a letter-sound knowledge task, The YARC Early Word Reading task and a reading test based on the YARC beginner passage and spelling responses (direct assessment).
General cognitive ability
Nonverbal ability was measured using the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI III UK) (direct assessment).
Findings
This study identified statistically significant positive impact on a number of child outcomes.
At post-test and 6-month follow-up:
- Oral language (composite of vocabulary, grammar and listening comprehension)
- Narrative skills
- Phenome awareness.
At 6-month follow-up only:
- Reading comprehension.
The conclusions that can be drawn from this study are limited by methodological issues pertaining to unequivalent groups, hence why a higher rating is not achieved.