News
TICLD project funded by the HRB through the APRO award
Dr Pauline Frizelle has secured funding for the TICLD project (International Consensus for Language Disorder) supported and funded by the HRB through the APRO award (Applied Programme of Research, 2.5 mil.) with the title 'Maximising the benefits of intervention research to support language and communication in children'.
Title: Maximising the benefits of intervention research to support language and communication in children.
The aim of the study is to ensure that interventions to support children's language and communication deliver maximum benefit. Ten percent of children have persisting problems with language and communication which significantly affect their education, relationships and wellbeing, and this number rises to 40% in children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. While research shows that lots of treatments are effective, there are significant barriers preventing practitioners from using them in a way which brings the most benefit.
Key barriers are 1) the inconsistent and imprecise intervention descriptions, 2) incomplete details about which children receive interventions and 3) significant variability in the outcome measures of language and communication used. These inconsistencies means it is not possible to compare or combine studies which allows researchers to identify what makes a treatment more efficient, who they work for, and how much treatment is needed to see change in outcomes which are important to children and families.
Through a series of connected studies, this programme of research has taken an international approach in developing priorities and agreement to address these key barriers across 7 countries. The work will culminate in a set of internationally agreed common standards of language intervention reporting, which will
- accelerate discovery by enabling meta-analysis and international collaboration
- increase intervention efficiency by accelerating translation of research into practice
- increase equity by reflecting the perspectives of stakeholders
‘This work has the potential to dramatically change the field of paediatric language and communication interventions across the world, and consequently improve the lives of all children with persisting problems learning their first language’.