Assessing core language skills in the Born-in-Bradford cohort: Administering a Comprehensive Language Assessment Tool for Children of Various Linguistic Backgrounds

• Dates:2020–22
• Funding body: Bradford Institute of Health Research
• Primary investigator: Cecile De Cat (Linguistics & Phonetics)
• Co-investigators: Ekaterini Klepousniotou (Psychology); Lydia Gunning
• Language at Leeds satellites: Language, development and cognition
• Language at Leeds themes: Language learning and teaching; Language and cognition

Language development underpins children’s social development and their achievement of good learning outcomes. The purpose of the Speech & Language Action Project is to improve children’s life chances through effective language support and interventions. In practice, we aim to:

• Help schools access and produce evidence of effective practice
• Work in partnership with language practitioners to inform the translation of research findings into practice and co-develop a research agenda, focusing on areas of need
• Gather evidence on the factors that influence language development in monolingual and multilingual children

The work of this Action Project is informed by a group of Yorkshire-based researchers, teaching improvement consultants, speech & language therapists, head teachers and teachers. We also benefit from the expertise of an Advisory Board, comprising national and international experts in language development.