Coaching Early Conversation Interaction and Language (CECIL) Evaluation

Implementation and Process Evaluation

It is now well established that language development in the early years is critical for later life success (Stewart and Waldfogel, 2017; Law, Charlton and Asmussen, 2017) and that language social mobility gaps are created early and are more and more difficult to disrupt as we go through the life span (Hutchinson, et. al., 2019; EEF, 2018; Andrews, Robinson, Hutchinson, 2017; Fernald, Marchman, and Weisleder, 2013).

A review by the Sutton Trust of research on promising language interventions for the early years including looking at the 2017 Education Endowment Foundation review of early language development (Law et. al., 2017) and the Communication Trust’s What works database identified Hackney Speech and Language Therapy Team Launchpad for Language and Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Speech and Language Therapy team ‘Lets’ Interact’ programmes as promising and so have been taken forward for evaluation for this project.

For the Coaching Early Conversation Interaction and Language (CECIL) project, each team built upon their existing programmes to incorporate further coaching elements and focused on supporting early years practitioners in Private, Voluntary, Independent (PVI) settings with the aim of improving staff practice and child outcomes around language and communication for two-year-olds. The Hackney CECIL (Launchpad for Language) also included some work with parents, to help them support their children’s language development. These projects were evaluated with IES leading on the implementation and process evaluation (IPE) and University of Oxford leading on the impact evaluation. This report covers the IPE section only.