Charles Hulme’s research while affiliated with Oxford Brookes University and other places

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Publications (307)


Timeline of the randomised controlled trial.
Flow of participants in the randomised controlled trial.
Path diagram for the pre‐reregistered primary outcome for the trial showing the effect of the intervention on standardised measures of language ability. The effect of the intervention is shown by the path from Intervention (dummy coded) to language at posttest, which is y‐standardised and equivalent to Cohen's d. 95% robust confidence intervals accounting for clustering within schools are shown in brackets ** p < .01
Path diagram for a pre‐reregistered secondary outcome for the trial showing the effect of the intervention on LanguageScreen. The effect of the intervention is shown by the path from Intervention (dummy coded) to language at posttest, which is y‐standardised and equivalent to Cohen's d. The 95% robust confidence intervals accounting for clustering within schools are shown in brackets ** p < .01
Path diagram for a pre‐reregistered secondary outcome for the trial showing the effect of the intervention on expressive writing skills. The effect of the intervention is shown by the path from Intervention (dummy coded) to language at posttest, which is y‐standardised and equivalent to Cohen's d. 95% robust confidence intervals accounting for clustering within schools shown in brackets ** p < .01
Oral language intervention in the late primary school years is effective: evidence from a randomised control trial
  • Article
  • Full-text available

December 2024

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32 Reads

Rosanne Esposito

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Charles Hulme

Background Oral language skills provide the foundation for formal education, and children may require language support over an extended period of time to maximise their education potential. Most work on language intervention, however, has focussed on the preschool or early school years. Here, we describe the development and evaluation of the Oral Language for Literacy Intervention (OLLI) programme which is designed to support children with weak language skills in the later primary school years. Methods We conducted a randomised control trial in 33 schools (50 classrooms). The language skills of all 8–9 year‐old children in each participating classroom (n = 1,423) were assessed using an automated app (LanguageScreen). The six children with the weakest LanguageScreen scores within each classroom (n = 296) were randomly allocated to the intervention (n = 148) or control group (n = 148). The children in the intervention group received the OLLI programme delivered in individual and small group sessions over 20 weeks. Children in the control group received their typical teaching. Results Children receiving the OLLI programme made significantly larger gains than children in the control group on a preregistered latent variable reflecting standardised measures of oral language ability (d = 0.38) and on a measure of their written expression (d = 0.42). Conclusions These findings have important implications for improving educational attainment in children in the late primary school years. The OLLI programme is designed to be deliverable at scale and is of relatively low cost.

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Assessing the Impact of a Heritage Language Intervention in Preschool: A Controlled Trial with Dual Language Learners from Language-Minority Backgrounds

September 2024

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13 Reads

Pascale M. J. Engel de Abreu

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Carolina Nikaedo

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Ariana Loff

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[...]

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Silke Fricke

Purpose: This exploratory randomized controlled trial evaluated the effectiveness of an oral language intervention delivered in the heritage language for dual language learners (DLLs) whose home language differs from both the school and societal languages. The primary objective was to assess the intervention's impact on home language development and its transfer to second language skills.Method: The sample included 186 DLLs (48% girls) from Portuguese-speaking families in Luxembourg, where Luxembourgish is the societal language. With a mean age of 55 months at the study’s start, participants were randomly assigned to an oral language intervention in Portuguese or an active control intervention, both administered in preschool settings. Language assessments were conducted immediately post-intervention and nine months later.Results: Immediate post-intervention assessments showed significant gains in Portuguese language proficiency, including vocabulary, narrative skills, phonemic awareness, and letter knowledge, for the oral language intervention group compared to controls. Transfer effects were observed in Luxembourgish, with improvements in receptive vocabulary and phonemic awareness. Gains in Portuguese vocabulary and phonemic awareness were sustained at the nine-month follow-up.Conclusion: The findings indicate that school-based oral language interventions can enhance heritage language proficiency and facilitate skill transfer to specific domains of a second language. These results suggest that targeted preschool language support may benefit DLLs in developing both home and school language skills.


When Alternative Analyses of the Same Data Come to Different Conclusions: A Tutorial Using DeclareDesign With a Worked Real-World Example

September 2024

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11 Reads

Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science

Recent studies in psychology have documented how analytic flexibility can result in different results from the same data set. Here, we demonstrate a package in the R programming language, DeclareDesign, that uses simulated data to diagnose the ways in which different analytic designs can give different outcomes. To illustrate features of the package, we contrast two analyses of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of GraphoGame, an intervention to help children learn to read. The initial analysis found no evidence that the intervention was effective, but a subsequent reanalysis concluded that GraphoGame significantly improved children’s reading. With DeclareDesign, we can simulate data in which the truth is known and thus can identify which analysis is optimal for estimating the intervention effect using “diagnosands,” including bias, precision, and power. The simulations showed that the original analysis accurately estimated intervention effects, whereas selection of a subset of data in the reanalysis introduced substantial bias, overestimating the effect sizes. This problem was exacerbated by inclusion of multiple outcome measures in the reanalysis. Much has been written about the dangers of performing reanalyses of data from RCTs that violate the random assignment of participants to conditions; simulated data make this message clear and quantify the extent to which such practices introduce bias. The simulations confirm the original conclusion that the intervention has no benefit over “business as usual.” In this tutorial, we demonstrate several features of DeclareDesign, which can simulate observational and experimental research designs, allowing researchers to make principled decisions about which analysis to prefer.


Violin plot showing the distribution of LanguageScreen total scores as a function of age group.
Mean LanguageScreen total scores as a function of age group and gender with 95% confidence intervals (CIs).
Mean LanguageScreen total scores as a function of age group and English as an additional language (EAL) status with 95% confidence intervals (CIs).
Wright map showing the distribution of ability estimates (left panel) relative to the item difficulty estimates across the four subscales (four right panels) on the Rasch model logit scale. EV = Expressive Vocabulary; RV = Receptive Vocabulary; SR = Sentence Repetition; LC = Listening Comprehension.
LanguageScreen: The Development, Validation, and Standardization of an Automated Language Assessment App

May 2024

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31 Reads

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1 Citation

Purpose Oral language skills provide a critical foundation for formal education and especially for the development of children's literacy (reading and spelling) skills. It is therefore important for teachers to be able to assess children's language skills, especially if they are concerned about their learning. We report the development and standardization of a mobile app—LanguageScreen—that can be used by education professionals to assess children's language ability. Method The standardization sample included data from approximately 350,000 children aged 3;06 (years;months) to 8;11 who were screened for receptive and expressive language skills using LanguageScreen. Rasch scaling was used to select items of appropriate difficulty on a single unidimensional scale. Results LanguageScreen has excellent psychometric properties, including high reliability, good fit to the Rasch model, and minimal differential item functioning across key student groups. Girls outperformed boys, and children with English as an additional language scored less well compared to monolingual English speakers. Conclusions LanguageScreen provides an easy-to-use, reliable, child-friendly means of identifying children with language difficulties. Its use in schools may serve to raise teachers' awareness of variations in language skills and their importance for educational practice.



Do we really need a new definition of dyslexia? A commentary

March 2024

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430 Reads

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9 Citations

Annals of Dyslexia

We provide a commentary on current debates about the definition of dyslexia. We agree with others that dyslexia is best thought of as a dimensional disorder with the best established causal risk factor being a deficit in phonological processing. Dyslexia is particularly common in children from families with a history of dyslexia and in children with preschool language difficulties. We argue that definitions may differ depending upon their purpose. Traditional discrepancy definitions may be useful for research purposes, but when considering the provision of educational services discrepancy definitions are not useful since all children with reading difficulties require reading intervention regardless of their level of IQ.


Timeline of the trial showing times of assessment, training and intervention.
CONSORT diagram showing the flow of participants through the cluster RCT.
Path diagram for the pre‐reregistered primary outcome for the trial showing the effect of the intervention on children receiving the whole‐class enrichment element of the programme. The effect of the intervention is shown by the path weight from Group (dummy coded) to language at posttest. The path weight is y‐standardised and equivalent to Cohen's d, with 95% robust confidence intervals accounting for clustering within schools shown in brackets. APTGRA, Action Picture Test Grammar score; APTINF, Action Picture Test Information score; CELFEV, CELF Expressive Vocabulary; CELFRS, CELF Recalling Sentences; LSEV, LanguageScreen Expressive Vocabulary; LSLC, LanguageScreen Listening Comprehension; LSRV, LanguageScreen Receptive Vocabulary; LSSR, LanguageScreen Sentence Recall
Path diagram for the pre‐reregistered primary outcome for the trial showing the effect of the intervention on children with weak language skills of receiving the whole‐class + Targeted support. The effect of the intervention is shown by the path weight from Group (dummy coded) to language at posttest. The path weight is y‐standardised and equivalent to Cohen's d, with 95% robust confidence intervals accounting for clustering within schools shown in brackets. APTGRA = Action Picture Test Grammar score; APTINF, Action Picture Test Information score; CELFEV, CELF Expressive Vocabulary; CELFRS, CELF Recalling Sentences; LSEV, LanguageScreen Expressive Vocabulary; LSLC, LanguageScreen Listening Comprehension; LSRV, LanguageScreen Receptive Vocabulary; LSSR, LanguageScreen Sentence Recall
Oral language enrichment in preschool improves children's language skills: a cluster randomised controlled trial

January 2024

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102 Reads

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6 Citations

Background Oral language skills provide the foundation for formal education, yet many children enter school with language weaknesses. This study evaluated the efficacy of a new language enrichment programme, the Nuffield Early Language Intervention—Preschool (NELI Preschool), delivered to children in the year before they enter formal education. Methods We conducted a preregistered cluster randomised controlled trial in 65 nursery schools in England (https://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN29838552). NELI Preschool consists of a 20‐week whole‐class language enrichment programme delivered by a teacher each day for 20 min. In addition, children with the weakest language skills in each class are allocated to receive additional targeted support delivered by classroom assistants (whole‐class + targeted). The language skills of all children (n = 1,586) in participating classrooms were assessed using the LanguageScreen automated app (https://oxedandassessment.com/languagescreen/). Settings were then randomly allocated to an intervention or control group. The children with the weakest language in each class (whole‐class + targeted children n = 438), along with four randomly selected children in each class allocated to the whole‐class only programme (n = 288) were individually tested on a range of language measures. Results Children receiving NELI Preschool made larger gains than children in the control group on an oral language latent variable (whole‐class children d = .26; whole‐class + targeted children d = .16). Conclusions This study provides good evidence that whole‐class intervention delivered in preschool can produce educationally significant improvements in children's language skills. The intervention is scaleable and relatively low cost. These findings have important implications for educational and social policy.


CONSORT diagram showing the flow of participants through the trial
Timeline of the assessments and programme delivery
Path diagram of the effects of the remote programme on reading accuracy. The coefficient between pretest and postest reading accuracy is standardized. The coefficient between the dummy group variable and posttest reading is y-standardized making it equivalent to Cohen’s d along with 95% CIs
Path diagram of the effects of the remote programme on phoneme awareness. The coefficient between pretest and postest reading accuracy is standardized. The coefficient between the dummy group variable and posttest reading is y-standardized making it equivalent to Cohen’s d along with 95% CIs
Literacy instruction from afar: evidence for the effectiveness of a remotely delivered language-rich reading programme

January 2024

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62 Reads

There is good evidence that high-quality instruction targeting reading-related skills in the classroom leads to gains in reading. However, considerably less is known about the possible efficacy of remote instruction. This study evaluated the efficacy of an interactive evidence-based language-rich literacy programme. 184 children were randomly allocated either to an 8-week remotely delivered language-rich literacy programme or to a wait-list control group. Children in the programme arm (n = 77 at analysis) completed 16-lessons remotely targeting vocabulary, phonemic awareness, reading, spelling, and narrative skills. Children in the wait-list arm (n = 58 at analysis) received business-as-usal from their schools. Children’s word reading accuracy and phonemic awareness was measured prior to and after the programme delivery period. Children receiving the literacy programme made significantly larger gains than the wait-list control group on reading accuracy (d = 0.32) and phonemic awareness (d = 0.63). This study demonstrates that a remotely-delivered literacy programme is effective. These findings have important implications for delivering specialist literacy instruction at scale.


Literacy Instruction from Afar: Evidence for the Effectiveness of a Remotely Delivered Language-rich Reading Programme

November 2023

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34 Reads

There is good evidence that high-quality instruction targeting reading-related skills in the classroom leads to gains in reading. However, considerably less is known about the possible efficacy of remote instruction. This study evaluated the efficacy of an interactive evidence-based language-rich literacy programme. 184 children were randomly allocated either to an 8-week remotely delivered language-rich literacy programme or to a wait-list control group. Children in the programme arm (n = 77 at analysis) completed 16-lessons remotely targeting vocabulary, phonemic awareness, reading, spelling, and narrative skills. Children in the wait-list arm (n = 58 at analysis) received business-as-usal from their schools. Children’s word reading accuracy and phonemic awareness was measured prior to and after the programme delivery period. Children receiving the literacy programme made significantly larger gains than the wait-list control group on reading accuracy (d = .32) and phonemic awareness (d = .63). This study demonstrates that a remotely-delivered literacy programme is effective. These findings have important implications for delivering specialist literacy instruction at scale.


LanguageScreen: The development, validation and standardization of an automated language assessment App

September 2023

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50 Reads

Purpose. Oral language skills provide a critical foundation for formal education and especially for the development of children’s literacy (reading and spelling) skills. It is therefore important for teachers to be able to assess children’s language skills directly, especially if they are concerned about their learning. Methods. We report the development and standardization of a mobile App, LanguageScreen (OxEd and Assessment, 2022), that can be used by education professionals to assess children’s language ability.Methods. The standardization includes data from approximately 350,000 children aged 3:06 to 8:11 years who have been screened using LanguageScreen. for receptive and expressive language skills using LanguageScreen. Rasch scaling was used to select items of appropriate difficulty on a single unidimensional scale.Results. The test is shown to have excellent psychometric properties including high reliability, good fit to the Rasch model and minimal differential item functioning across key student groups. Girls outperformed boys and children with English as an additional language scored less well than monolingual English speakers. Conclusions. LanguageScreen provides a highly reliable and, child-friendly means of identifying and monitoring the progress of children with language difficulties andthat is easy to use. Its use in schools may helpserve to raise teachers’ awareness of variations in language skills and their importance for educational practice.


Citations (80)


... Dyslexia is often characterised as a difficulty in learning to decode/encode print (Snowling and Hulme 2024), or as a learning difficulty that impacts an individual's ability to develop reading accuracy and fluency (Shaywitz, Shaywitz, and Shaywitz 2021). However, when viewed through a social relational model of disability (Haegele and Hodge 2016), dyslexia is understood to be both neurological in nature and influenced by environmental factors (Abetz 2022: Catts et al. 2024. ...

Reference:

‘Oh, what does dyslexia do?’: a qualitative investigation of ableist microaggressions towards Australian dyslexic children in primary school
Do we really need a new definition of dyslexia? A commentary

Annals of Dyslexia

... This revealed that the NELI programme, when delivered at scale, produced effects that were similar in size to those obtained in the West et al. (2021) randomised trial. In a subsequent study, West et al. (2024) reported the results of a cluster randomised trial evaluating a preschool language programme (the Nuffield Early Language Intervention -Preschool (NELI Preschool)). This programme consisted of a whole-class language enrichment programme delivered to all children in preschool classrooms, coupled with targeted individual and small-group language support delivered to the 5 children in each class with the weakest language skills. ...

Oral language enrichment in preschool improves children's language skills: a cluster randomised controlled trial

... Over the past years, the interest in studying laterality has increased considerably, driven by several findings that reveal a higher prevalence of non-right handedness (i.e., left-and mixed-handedness) among individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders. Atypical handedness (i.e., non-right handedness) has been associated with neurodevelopmental disorders such as developmental dyslexia (DD, for metaanalyses see Abbondanza et al., 2023;Eglinton & Annett, 1994;Packheiser et al., 2023), developmental coordination disorder (DCD, see for meta-analysis Darvik et al., 2018), intellectual disability (see for meta-analysis Papadatou-Pastou & Tomprou, 2015), and autism spectrum disorder (see for meta-analysis Markou et al., 2017). Furthermore, there is also evidence of atypical functional and structural lateralization among individuals with DD Bishop, 2013; and DCD (Biotteau et al., 2016;Hodgson & Hudson, 2017), among other disorders. ...

Language and reading impairments are associated with increased prevalence of non-right-handedness

Child Development

... Moreover, there is a good understanding of some of the causal risk factors associated with dyslexia and a significant evidence base of effective interventions for reading and language difficulties. The issues involved in scaling up methods of screening and identification and, following these, providing evidencebased interventions need to be at the forefront of policy and practice (Newbury et al., 2022). ...

Challenges for implementation in diverse settings: reflections on two randomised controlled trials of educational interventions in South American communities
  • Citing Article
  • April 2022

Research Papers in Education

... It is very helpful to provide learners with an overall speaking level assessment in computer-assisted language learning systems. There have been many studies in this direction [11][12][13]. In addition to the overall speaking level score of the speaker, providing more detailed and specific feedback on pronunciation errors is more helpful for learners' language learning [14][15]. ...

Non-right handedness is associated with language and reading impairments

Child Development

... Additionally, we observed the presence of non-synonymous SNVs in the DCDC2 and KIAA0319 genes. These genes are recognized for their involvement in neuronal migration and cell adhesion, both of which are crucial processes for brain development and connectivity [43,44]. Variations in these genes could impact the formation of neural circuits and communication between brain regions. ...

Hypothesis-driven genome-wide association studies provide novel insights into genetics of reading disabilities

Translational Psychiatry

... We used summary statistics from the most recent large-scale (>10,000 cases) GWAS of neurodevelopmental conditions. These were ADHD (Demontis et al., 2023), autism (Grove et al., 2019), and dyslexia (Doust et al., 2022). The PGS for dyslexia was created using the publicly available summary statistics containing only the top 10,000 SNPs. ...

Discovery of 42 genome-wide significant loci associated with dyslexia

Nature Genetics

... Furthermore, understanding that the letters in print correspond to specific sounds used in spoken language (alphabetic principle) is a crucial skill for successful readers (Rieben & Perfetti, 2013). Moreover, reading fluency constitutes another skill which allows readers to read aloud accurately and rapidly, with natural expression and concentrate on comprehension (Snowling et al., 2022;Stevens et al., 2017). In addition, successful readers should have sufficient knowledge of vocabulary, which enables them to understand different kinds of texts (Snowling et al., 2022;Trezek et al., 2010). ...

The Science of Reading
  • Citing Article
  • May 2022

... The inability to communicate efficiently and the associated low self-concept and poor social skills might also directly affect individuals' internalizing symptoms [55]. Given the close associations between language skills with internalizing and externalizing symptoms, interventions have targeted language skills in young children to improve their internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and these interventions did produce promising results [60,61]. Based on this evidence, intervening in verbal or general language skills of individuals with NF1 might also help decrease their internalizing and externalizing symptoms, a target missing in current interventions that focus primarily on the interactions between the mind and the body [62]. ...

Early language intervention improves behavioral adjustment in school: Evidence from a cluster randomized trial
  • Citing Article
  • June 2022

Journal of School Psychology

... Starling et al., 2012). These topics also appeared in the research priorities concerning DLD that have recently been defined in the U.K. (Kulkarni et al., 2022). This development is promising and will hopefully contribute to shaping support to children with DLD, by equipping professionals with the knowledge, tools, and support in the system they need. ...

Editorial Perspective: Speaking up for developmental language disorder – the top 10 priorities for research