The Manchester Language Study: Sixteen-year-old data for children with developmental language disorders who had attended language units in England 2003-2008

Conti-Ramsden, Gina and Botting, Nicola and Durkin, Kevin and Toseeb, Umar (2020). The Manchester Language Study: Sixteen-year-old data for children with developmental language disorders who had attended language units in England 2003-2008. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-854103

Data description (abstract)

The project aimed to follow up participants of the Manchester Language Study (MLS) when they were in their final year of secondary education (Year 11) and compare their outcomes with age-matched peers who did not have a history of developmental language disorders (DLD). Participants with DLD were on average 16 years of age and had originally been recruited as part of the MLS when they were 7 years of age (Year 2) and were attending language units in England. The project aims included: a) determining the psycholinguistic, socio-cognitive and literacy profiles of participants in adolescence, b) investigating social-behavioural-emotional wellbeing including strengths and difficulties of participants in adolescence, c) examining changes from childhood to adolescence and d) investigating the transition to adult life. The Manchester Language Study (MLS) began in 1995 and spans approximately 20 years from childhood to early adulthood. This collection includes data related to the MLS cohort which was gathered during their final year of secondary education. The data for the MLS cohort at the time of recruitment (7 years of age) is published and available in ReShare (publication reference 853746, link provided under Related resources). The data for the MLS cohort in their final year of primary education is also published and available in ReShare (publication reference 853965, link provided under Related resources). The data for the MLS cohort in early adulthood is also published and available in ReShare (publication reference 852066, link provided under Related resources).

Data creators:

Creator Name	Affiliation	ORCID (as URL)
Conti-Ramsden Gina	University of Manchester	https://orcid.org0000-0003-0235-7209
Botting Nicola	City, University of London	https://orcid.org0000-0003-1082-9501
Durkin Kevin	University of Strathclyde	https://orcid.org0000-0002-6167-3407
Toseeb Umar	University of York	https://orcid.org0000-0002-7536-2722

Sponsors:

Economic and Social Research Council, Wellcome Trust , Nuffield Foundation

Grant reference:

Nuffield Foundation grants DIR/28 and EDU/8366, RES-000-270-003

Topic classification:

Education
Psychology

Keywords:

special needs students, language development, secondary schools, language disabilities, special education teachers

Project title:

The Manchester Language Study: 16-year-old data for children with developmental language disorders who had attended language units in England.

Grant holders:

Gina Conti-Ramsden

Project dates:

From	To
1 September 2003	31 August 2008

Date published:

28 Jan 2020 14:22

Last modified:

28 Jan 2020 14:23

Coverage and Methodology

Collection period:

Date from:	Date to:
1 September 2003	31 August 2008

Geographical area:

England

Country:

United Kingdom

Data collection method:

The initial cohort of children participating in the Manchester Language Study was a random 50% sample of all Year 2 children attending mainstream language units in England. Of the 242 identified and recruited at Year 2 (on average, 7 years of age), 139 young people (57.4% of the original cohort) agreed to participate at age 16, 69.8% were males and 30.2% were females, ranging in age between 15;2 and 16;10. The attrition observed was partly due to funding constraints at follow-up stages of the study. Of those who did not take part, contact had been lost with 51 individuals (21.1%) and 52 children (21.5%) did not consent to take part. A comparison group of 124 typically developing (TD) adolescents from a broad background participated in the Manchester Language Study at approximately age 16, 59% were males and 41% were females, ranging in age between 15;2 and 16;7 years). At this wave of the study, data as per the 2001–2002 General Household Survey (Office for National Statistics, 2001–2002) were consulted to target adolescents who would be representative of the range and distribution of households in England in terms of household income and maternal education. Initially, TD adolescents from the same schools as the participating adolescents with SLI were targeted. This was followed by a second wave targeting schools in areas where more representation in terms of particular household income/maternal education brackets was required. The TD adolescents had no history of special education needs or speech and language therapy provision and thus did not have reports of conditions that may have affected their learning, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, or other behavioural difficulties. At the time of this phase of the MLS, all adolescents (DLD and age-matched peers) were attending the last year of compulsory secondary education. Following informed written consent from families, children were visited at school and given self-report questionnaires, individually, in a quiet room or area. The structured interviews were carried out in a conversational style following the young people’s pace and encouraging them to fully communicate their responses. Care was taken to ensure that all participants comprehended the questions and the interviewers were able to provide additional clarification, rephrasing, and/or repetition of the target and probe questions as often as necessary. A battery of psycholinguistic tests was also completed as part of this phase of the study, for the DLD participants who had no psychometric data collected at age 14 and for all the age-matched peers. The young people with DLD and their age-matched peers were assessed individually at school by a researcher and interviewed/tested in a quiet room or area. The teachers’ interviews were carried out separately, in school. The parents of the young people were interviewed separately at home for single period of about 2 hours.

Observation unit:

Individual

Kind of data:

Numeric, Text

Type of data:

Cohort and longitudinal studies

Resource language:

English

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