Talking Communication
An intervention for children aged 3-4 with delayed language,
Early Talk Boost narrows the gap between them and their peers
Designed and evaluated by Speech and Language UK, the children's communication charity.
How It Works
Early Talk Boost is delivered by a trained education practitioner within your education setting.
1Learn
At least one Early Years Practitioner attends Early Talk Boost training.
2Identify
Children are selected for the intervention using the simple assessment provided.
3Deliver
Three sessions per week during circle/story time, each lasting 15-20 minutes, for 9 weeks.
One parent workshop.
4Track
Use the online Tracker to monitor a child or group’s progress, download and print reports to share with colleagues and parents.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know to decide if Early Talk Boost is right for your early years setting
What does it take to become a Early Talk Boost practitioner?
Which children would benefit from Early Talk Boost?
What will the the children learn?
What are the benefits of Early Talk Boost?
What does Early Talk Boost cost?
How does Early Talk Boost include parents?
How does Early Talk Boost support Ofsted?
What does it take to become an EarlyTalk Boost practitioner?
Training takes just one full day.
Practitioners will learn in detail:
- The importance of good speech, language and communication skills
- How to identify children who would benefit from Early Talk Boost
- How to deliver the intervention using the pre-prepared resources
For London-based settings we may also be able to offer the course split over 4 twilight sessions.
Which children would benefit from Early Talk Boost?
Early Talk Boost is designed for children with delayed language skills due to reduced opportunities to develop language and communication skills in their early years. Studies show that children from areas of deprivation are over twice as likely to have poor language development in their early years. In some early years settings, this can describe 80% of children. Early Talk Boost aims to give children who have missed out on these early communication opportunities the boost they need to catch up in their language development.
Can children with identified Special Educational Needs (SEN) benefit? What about students with autism?
Early Talk Boost is not designed for children with diagnosed SEN such as autism, and therefore these children will not benefit as much from taking part in the intervention. Under the guidance of a speech and language therapist the Early Talk Boost intervention groups could be adapted for children with identified SEN – but this would mean that children were receiving a programme based on the EarlyTalk Boost Programme.
What will the children learn?
Early Talk Boost breaks language and communication down into four component parts:
- Attention and listening
- Developing vocabulary
- Building sentences
- Having conversations and making friends
The 10-week programme has a focus each week, with each focus connected to one of these four components.
How do we track progress?
Practitioners are trained to use the Early Talk Boost Tracker, which will help you select children for the intervention and to monitor their progress.
The resource pack includes access to Speech and Language UK's online tracker, which will enable you to produce graphs of the children's scores. You can then download and print individual reports for parents and teachers as well as group reports for leadership, governors and commissioners.
What are the benefits of Early Talk Boost?
- Supports children who are not achieving their expected levels of progress in their language development
- Can be used to demonstrate to Ofsted how you are focussing on developing staff skills
- Helps to build relationships with parents by reinforcing the language skills the child learned during the group sessions
- Demonstrates the effective use of your Early Years Pupil Premium allocation
- An all-in-one speech and language solution package
- Can be used by non speech and language specialists
- Has been proven to improve children’s language and communication through our evidence base
- Designed to be sustainable so you can deliver the intervention multiple times to new groups of children
- A dedicated support team at Speech and Language UK, helping you to maximise the impact of Early Talk Boost in your setting
- You can identify, monitor and track children’s progress before and following the intervention with the online tracker
What does Early Talk Boost cost?
To get started, settings will need to purchase resources and train at least one early years practitioner.
Find out about training options.
The Early Talk Boost Intervention Pack costs £500.00. It can be purchased from the children's communication charity Speech and Language UK and contains the following materials:
- An Intervention Manual containing detailed group session plans
- A toolkit of resources - everything you will need to run the intervention
- 10 x 8 Jake and Tizzy Story Books that have been specifically designed and written for the intervention
- Access to Speech and Language UK's Online Tracker Tool to measure and analyse progress which supports Early Pupil Premium
How does Early Talk Boost include parents?
Parents naturally play a key role in supporting language development and Early Talk Boost supports and includes parents throughout. All parents will have a copy of the eight weekly Jake & Tizzy story books to share at home, and your setting will be given the tools to host a workshop on how sharing books can help with language development. These practical strategies will show parents what they can do to encourage their child’s talking.
How does Early Talk Boost support Ofsted?
Ofsted identify the most successful settings as having a focus on developing skilled staff. Early Talk Boost can be provided using Early Years Pupil Premium to create a skilled workforce and knowledgeable parents, known to be essential in supporting communication development during a child’s early years.
Is there evidence to show Early Talk Boost works?
Early Talk Boost was piloted between September 2014 and September 2015 to evaluate its impact on children’s early language development. The evaluation framework was designed with the support of Professor Tim Pring at City University London to be as close as possible to a randomised controlled trial, considered to be the gold standard of research methods.
The evaluation demonstrated the following:
- Children make statistically significant progress in their early language development.
- On average, children make six months’ progress after the nine-week intervention, helping them to narrow the gap between them and other children their age. This is twice the rate of progress compared to that of children who haven't had the intervention.
- 95% of parents felt that Early Talk Boost had made a difference to their children’s language and communication. Parents felt they had learnt something by being involved in the programme, and would change how they talked to their child.
- 76% of children said that they were happy telling stories (compared with 31% before the intervention).
- Samples of children’s talking showed they used longer and more complicated sentences.
- After Early Talk Boost training, all early years practitioners surveyed felt more confident in supporting children’s language, and 94% said it would change the way they worked.
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© 2020
Jaya Simpson BMedSci (Hons), HCPC reg, trading as Talking Communication