Preventing and Improving Special Needs Education in Children with Language Problems: A Campbell Review and Randomised Controlled Trials

To be able to understand and use language is a prerequisite both for participation in society in general and for later School performance. However, there are many children entitled to special needs education who struggle with this. Still, several prior studies give reasons for optimism: With well-tailored interventions it is possible to change childrens Language comprehension. There is however a great need for studies of this when it comes to children With special needs. In this project we have worked with five studies to increase our knowledge in this area: In a Campbell review we have systematically summarized the effects from Language comprehension interventions. This review is now published. We have also done a randomised controlled trial where we have examined the effects from a language comprehension intervention. This is now published. We will continue to trace these children to see how their further development is affected by the intervention, for instance when it comes to their need for special needs education. We are also working on a Campbell/cochrane review that concerns the effect of Language interventions for children with severe Learning disorders (Down syndrome, autism Spectrum etc).This review is approaching publication. Next, we have completed at multiple case study of an intervention in special needs education for children with severe Reading disorders. We have also completed an RCT for children with poor number sense and Language problems that is now under publishing and a single case study of children with reading disorders that are also under publishing.

Dissemination plan Results from the study will subsequently be presented at international conferences, and updates from the study will be published on a web site developed to serve the project. Because the results are generalizable to other countries, the web page will also be available in English. The project described in this application will afford the possibility of developing many high-quality publications in generalist journals, as well as publications in more specialised journals. We will publish all studies open access, in cases where journals are non-open access we will use open access funding from our faculty to buy rights for the papers so that they become openly available. Because the results of the project have the potential to be directly applicable to the classroom, a crucial aspect of the strategy for the dissemination of the study results is to reach out to policy makers, kindergartens, public health centres and educational psychologists offices. The results and experiences will therefore be reported and discussed in popular science articles in relevant journals and at conferences for kindergarten teachers and public health nurses. The results will also be presented for students educated in my department, and I will also provide them to Masters students who write their theses on the basis of data from the project. We will work together with collaborators in the UK to disseminate the results to other countries. We also have an innovation Component in the project, intervention material that we will produce and make available for kindergartens and school at low cost. Dette er dissemineringsstrategien for prosjektet. Alle disse punktene er blitt oppfylt, bortsett fra det å gjøre intervensjonsmateriellet tilgjengelig. Dette arbeider vi med. .

The ability to use and comprehend language is essential for scholastic achievement and participation in society. Unfortunately, many children with special educational needs face challenges in linguistic comprehension. Fortunately, prior meta-analyses have shown that interventions targeting linguistic comprehension skills can enhance this. Still, there are weaknesses in these meta-analyses because they merge custom measures and standardised measures and have included studies without a control group. In hig h quality randomised controlled trials of linguistic comprehension interventions, results are mixed, but promising. Both Bowyer-Crane et al. (2008), Clarke et al. (2010) and our own research group have managed to demonstrate effects on linguistic comprehe nsion from such studies. However, more studies of children with language difficulties and special needs are highly needed. In order to address this we have designed a study with three work packages: WP1 is a Campbell collaboration review of the effect of language comprehension interventions. Research is a cumulative enterprise, and by doing such a review we will systematise knowledge by using the highest standards of methodological rigor. WP2 is a randomised controlled trial of effects of a language compr ehension intervention in children with weak language skills. Here we will examine whether we can prevent special needs education children with language problems by giving them a targeted intervention in kindergarten. Work package 3 is a randomised control led trial of effects of a language comprehension intervention in children with special needs education and weak language comprehension skills. Here we will examine whether a targeted intervention can improve outcome from special needs education. An innova tion based on the project is the intervention material from WP2 and WP3. This will be produced and made availeble at low cost. In WP2 and WP3 we will use register data to gather important background information