Transcript Professor Law presentation

Communication across the life course
Intergenerational cycles and how we could change them
James Law
Professor of Speech and Language Science
“Growing Communication Assets for Scotland’s Future”
Scottish Government’s Communication Summit 26th October 2016
What’s the problem?
The changing nature of the world
of employment and the increasing
importance of communication
“During most of human history a person with a communication
disorder was not thought of as “disabled”. The shepherds,
seamstresses, plowmen, and spinners of the past did not require
optimal communication skills to be productive members of their
society, as they primarily depended on their manual abilities.
Today a fine high-school athlete—a great “physical specimen”—
who has no job and suffers from poor communication skills is not
unemployed, but, for the most part, unemployable. On the other
hand, a paraplegic in a wheel chair with good communication
skills can earn a good living and add to the wealth of the society.
For now and into the 21st century, the paraplegic is more “fit”
than the athlete with communication deficits. “
Ruben 2000, p. 243
Where does it all start Life chances
• What are those capacities that best suit an individual to modern
society?
• “professional families were observed preparing their children for
symbolic problem solving, providing them with experience of
language diversity, supporting and encouraging them in their
problem solving and nurturing their confidence and motivation,
whilst only one-third of working class families and none of the
welfare families were observed similarly preparing their
children.“
Hart and Risley 1995.
Life chances
Life chance indicators
(Field 2010)
The social gradient
Data from Scotland
Growing up in Scotland
Language and socio-economic status
But how does this change over time?
• The Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) is a national birth cohort
of children born in the UK in 2000/2001with seven sweeps
surveys (10 months, 3,5,7 and 11 years) . Over 18 thousand
children were initially sampled;
• At 3,5,7 and 11 different scales of the British Ability Scales
(BAS II) were used (Naming Vocabulary [at 3 and 5], Single
word Reading at 7 and verbal similarities at 11). At three years
we also have the Bracken Scale of School Readiness.
Millenium Cohort Children (UK)
Months of development ahead or behind the
average at 3 subsequent ages
“School readiness”
at 3 years
At seven years
(single word reading)
At eleven years
(verbal similarities)
-13.9
-9.8
-14.1
Advanced
(top 20%)
8.0
8.4
9.5
Very Advanced
(top 5%)
13.0
16.4
17.0
26.9m
26.2m
31.1m
Delayed
(bottom 10%)
Difference
between top and
bottom
% of age
At five years
(vocabulary)
Millenium Cohort Children (UK)
Months of development ahead or behind the
average at 3 subsequent ages
“School readiness”
at 3 years
At seven years
(single word reading)
At eleven years
(verbal similarities)
-13.9
-9.8
-14.1
Advanced
(top 20%)
8.0
8.4
9.5
Very Advanced
(top 5%)
13.0
16.4
17.0
26.9m
26.2m
31.1m
44.8
31.2
23.5
Delayed
(bottom 10%)
Difference
between top and
bottom
% of age
At five years
(vocabulary)
Bradbury, B., Corak, M., Waldfogel, J., and Washbrook, E. (2015). Too many children left
behind. Russell Sage Foundation: New York. From ECLS K cohort in the US
And adult outcomes…?
And the adult outcomes..
British Cohort Study (BCS70), one of Britain's richest research
resources for the study of human development with over
18,000 persons born in one week in April 1970;
At 34 years
Literacy – adapted measure of reading and writing – nb split at
level two literacy, (with poor literacy being defined as being
equivalent to a grade D or lower in the national GCSE exam);
Mental health – four scales measuring Malaise, Satisfaction with
life, Control over life, and Self-efficacy - nb split at none/
three or more areas of concern identified;
Employment - months spent unemployed between April 1986
and March 2004 – nb split at +/- one year
At thirty four years
* significance at the 0.5 level
Variable
Literacy
Specific language impairment
1.59*
Non-Specific language impairment
4.35*
Mental health
Employment
2.24*
2.90*
Gender
1.88*
2.05*
Maternal education
1.66*
1.22*
Mother single parent
1.39*
Overcrowding
1.36*
1.64*
1.59*
Pre-schooling
1.24*
1.22*
1.33*
Parent reads to child
1.21*
Parent history of reading difficulties
1.64*
1.92*
Mother smoked during pregnancy
1.15*
1.27*
1.92*
Small for dates
Behaviour - neurotic
Behaviour – anti-social
Seen a speech-language therapist
2.13*
1.40*
But is it language or “soft skills” ..or both?
Effects of SLCN in adulthood
from HILDA*,**
• 22,738 observations at two time periods (11,369 individuals)
4 years apart (2005 and 2009).
• Includes individuals who had marked Speech, Language and
Communication Needs.
*Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia
** Analyses from Joe Willoughby, Newcastle University
Soft skills
• Heckman and Kautz (2012) define soft skills as “personality
traits, goals, motivations and preferences that are valued in
the labour market, schools and many other domains”.
• The same skills have also been known by “character”,
“personality traits”, “non-cognitive skills”, “non-cognitive
abilities” and “socio-emotional skills”. They also have a variety
of taxonomies, such as the Big 3, Big 5, Big 9 or MPQ
–
–
–
–
–
Conscientiousness
Openness to Experience
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Emotional Stability (Antonymous to Neuroticism)
Mental health
* significance at the 1% level
Average Effects
Median and Quartile Effects
showing the distributions
The higher “floor” for those
with SLCN is assumed to have
come from a lower number of
observations reducing the
potential range.
Psychological distress
* significance at the 1% level
Life satisfaction
* significance at the 1% level
Higher score represents higher life
satisfaction
SLCN in relation to soft skills
and adult outcomes * significance at the 0.5 level
Conscientiousness
Openness to
Experience
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Emotional Stability
SLCN
Kessler’s Psychological
Distress Scale
Mental Health
Life Satisfaction
-0.75 (0.06)*
1.23 (0.12)*
0.075 (0.01)*
0.13 (0.06)*
-0.07 (0.01)*
-0.69 (0.05)*
2.26 (0.105)*
0.17 (0.013)*
0.14 (0.07)*
0.48 (0.13)*
0.14 (0.017)*
-2.22 (0.06)*
6.0 (0.11)*
0.24 (0.014)*
2.25 (0.98)*
-9.36 (1.88)*
-0.47 (0.23)*
What do we know about the effects of language
interventions?
Source
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004110/pdf
And the “What works” (WW) for children
with speech and language needs
and the Communication Trust WW interactive website:-
www.thecommunicationtrust.org.uk/schools/what-works
In summary
• Language and communication are central to “Life chances”;
• Clear and consistent evidence for social gradient with implications
for the role of parents;
• Early language skills ARE associated with adult outcomes;
• Intervention with young children has been shown to work in clinical
samples and it has come to be acknowledged that schools need to
be commissioning targeted services;
• Much more evidence needed
– on interventions in the latter stages of primary school, into secondary schools
and beyond;
– the impact such interventions can have on social inequalities and over time.