The Lively Study

About this project

We conducted a research project to evaluate the effectiveness of language interventions for pre-school children with significant language difficulties in nursery contexts.

This innovative research was funded by the Heather van der Lely Foundation. It aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of language interventions for children with language difficulties by randomly allocating schools to one of two groups:

• Building Early Sentences Therapy (BEST) BEST was developed by Newcastle University in partnership with speech and language therapists. It is grounded in usage-based theory.
• The Derbyshire Language Scheme (DLS) has been used widely for many years. The study used an adapted version of this scheme.

Summary of findings

Both interventions:
•    Were effective for children with language difficulties. Children showed an improvement at the end of therapy and after a non-intervention (follow up) period.
•    Showed similar improvements in the child’s comprehension of language.
 
Children who received BEST showed significantly more improvement in their:
•    Expressive language
•    Receptive and expressive language after the therapy had stopped
 
The LIVELY study showed that BEST, which is a low-dosage intervention, can produce language gains with moderate to large effects.
 
There was accelerated progress after the BEST intervention was stopped. This shows the significant potential of interventions designed with reference to usage-based theory.

Usage-based interventions precisely manipulate language exposure to promote the specific cognitive mechanisms hypothesized to promote language learning.

You can see a video about our findings on the LIVELY website. 

Publications

McKean, C., Jack, C., Pert, S., Letts, C., Stringer, H., Masidlover, M., Trebacz, T., Rush, R., Armstrong, E., Conn, K., Sandham, J., Ashton, E., & Rose, N. (2025). A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing the Efficacy of Pre‐School Language Interventions—Building Early Sentences Therapy and an Adapted Derbyshire Language Scheme. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 60(3)

Jack, C.; Ashton, E; Conn, K; Letts, C; Pert, S; Preston, E; Rose, N; Stringer, H; McKean, C. (2024) “Adapting early years language and communication support in response to COVID-19 - a catalyst for reflection and more successful parental engagement?” Child Language Teaching and Therapy

Trebacz, A., McKean, C., Stringer, H., & Pert, S. (2023). Piloting building early sentences therapy for pre‐school children with low language abilities: An examination of efficacy and the role of sign as an active ingredient. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders. 

Papers about adapting BEST for use with bilingual children with language difficulties will be available towards the end of 2026. 

People

• Professor Cristina McKean - PI (now at Oxford University)
• Dr Carolyn Letts
• Professor Helen Stringer
• Dr Sean Pert (University of Manchester)
• Dr Christine Jack
• Dr Helen Wareham
• Dr Anastasia Trebacz
• Kate Benson
• Emily Preston
• Elaine Ashton
• Jenny Sandham