Designing and evaluating individualised training programmes for learning support assistants providin

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Designing and evaluating individualised
training programmes for learning support
assistants providing specialist language support
in secondary schools
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Sophie Miles Principal Speech and Language
Therapist Greenshaw High School Dr Merle
Mahon University College London Dr Julie
Radford Institute of Education, London
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Aim

• To investigate the application of Conversation
  Analysis (CA) in the design and evaluation of
  individualized training programmes for Learning
  Support Assistants (LSAs) in one secondary school
  in London.

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Greenshaw High School

• Greenshaw High School is a large, successful
  comprehensive secondary school in Sutton, Surrey.
  
• There are1,500 pupils, 120 teachers and 20 LSAs.
• Greenshaw Language Resource Base is comprised of
  30 pupils with Specific Language Impairment who
  attend the base for therapy up to 3 times a week,
  depending on need
• The base is resourced by 2 full time Speech and
  Language Therapists and a speech and language
  department manager/therapy assistant

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Background

• Although many older children and adolescents with
  Speech Language and Communication Needs (SLCN)
  attend mainstream secondary schools, with the
  support of LSAs, there is little evidence for the
  effectiveness of this support (Law et al,2002
  Blatchford et al, 2004)

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• The Bercow review identified a need for training
  of the workforce surrounding older children with
  SLCN and found a dearth in availability of
  resources for this age group.
• The report also identifies the need for research
  and evidence based practice with this client
  group.

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• Gascoigne (2006) identified the need for a team
  around the child to structure the activities and
  interaction opportunities of a childs everyday
  life.
• She also recommended that training others should
  be a central activity for Speech and Language
  Therapists in order to maximise the impact for
  the child and family

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• Dockrell (2008) recommends that
• To be effective language interventionists need
  to know how best to maximise the positive effects
  of significant others and the pedagogy of
  language learning to help each child achieve
  their potential
• Interventions need to be considered within the
  wider context in which the child develops in
  relation to the specific patterns of strength and
  needs presented by the child

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• To be effective professional training must
  provide opportunities to reflect on practice,
  engage in dialogue, be based on actual work with
  participants and provide opportunities for peer
  observation, coaching and feedback after training
  has been completed

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• Although there are now some effective training
  courses available for LSAs working with this
  client group (Elks, E and Mclachlan, H (2006),
  Hayden, S and Jordan, E (2000)), none of these
  involve individual review and feedback regarding
  interaction strategies for specific pupils with
  SLCN.

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Conversation Analysis

• CA is a useful tool for examining interactions
  because it is objective when the conversations
  are transcribed and analysed, the researcher has
  no biases and is not looking for anything the
  results are purely based on what is found in the
  transcription
• CA also provides a useful way of examining the
  structure of a conversation and thus turn taking
  and topic maintenance, conversation skills which
  are often issues for older children and
  adolescents with SLCN (Nippold, 2007)

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• In CA terms, interaction is
• Orderly
• Organised sequentially turn-by-turn
• Turn design reflects previous turn
• Co-participants are of equal importance
• All behaviours are potentially relevant
• Nothing is dismissed as trivial
• What matters is the participants own orientation
  within the interaction,
• Not the analysts bias
• (Schegloff, 2003)

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Motivation

• At Greenshaw our language resource base pupils
  attend all mainstream lessons, with LSAs
  providing the majority of the support
• As this client group is so heterogeneous, we
  wanted to provide individualised training
  specific to our pupils and LSAs.

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Method

• Subjects
• 3 pupils who attend Greenshaw Language Resource
  Base and their LSAs
• 3 LSA-pupil dyads
• 2 presented

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Procedure
video pre-training
Creation of training programme based on CA
CA of data
Individual video observation sessions
Strategies identified
General training session
Video 2 weeks post-training
CA of Post-training data
Results conclusions
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Dyad 1 (Cathy Andrew)Background

• Andrew was a 13 year old Pupil with SLCN
• Specific pragmatic difficulties including
  maintaining topic, repairing breakdowns in
  communication, often takes language literally,
  poor listener awareness
• Cathy was an experienced LSA keen to learn
  strategies to deal with the Andrews language and
  communication difficulties
• Videoed in a 11 session, during which they
  discussed the plot of Dracula, the play they
  were reading in English lessons.

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Dyad 1 Pre-training transcript

• topic overload as an interactional issue
• Cathy has asked Andrew what the story of Dracula
  is about. He
• has been speaking for 50 seconds continuously.

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Cathys response to reading the transcript

• Im not allowed to talk!
• His turns are longer than mine
• Andrew interrupts nearly every sentence

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Strategies identified

• Cathy to give Andrew direct immediate feedback
  when he produces topic overload
• Cathy to initiate repair when communication
  breaks down.

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Post-training analysis

• Feedback on topic overload
• There are five examples of Cathy stopping
  Andrew when he produces topic overload in the
  post-training analysis.
• Andrew is describing the costume of a character
  in the film of Dracula.

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Dyad 2 (Louise and James) Background

• 12 year old Pupil with significant language and
  communication needs
• Particular difficulties with expressive language
  and word finding
• Experienced LSA wanted strategies to help James
  express himself more in the classroom
• Videoed in a 11 session, during which they
  discussed the plot of Artemis Fowl, the book
  James was reading in English lessons

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Dyad 2 Pre-training transcript

• Louise asks multiple questions per turn and
  gives him little time to respond
• Louise and James are discussing part of the plot
  of Artemis Fowl

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Louises response to reading the transcript

• If anyone were to be taking slightly more
  control, it was me
• I had to almost drag it out of him
• He was taking a long time to formulate his
  responses. I had to prompt and lead him

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Strategies identified

• Louise to ask only one question per turn
• Louise to give James more time to respond to
  questions
• Louise to set the scene to prompt James

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Post-training transcript

• Louise only asks one question per turn and gives
  James more time to respond
• In the post-training data, the highest number of
  questions Louise asks in one turn is 2. However,
  when she does this, the second question is more
  of a re-phrasing of the first question, whilst
  setting the scene.
• There are six examples of Louise giving James
  more time to respond to questions in the
  post-training analysis compared to the
  pre-training analysis.

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Dyad 2 Post-training Transcript

• Louise and James are discussing the plot of
  Artemis Fowl

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Discussion

• CA allowed the researchers to identify
  themes which were local to the interactional
  issues of the particular dyads

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• Therefore, the training programme
• could be individualised to each
• particular dyad.

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• Following a general training session,
• the LSAs were able to use the
• transcripts to identify themes, which
• were discussed during the
• individualised training session.

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• Conversation analysis of the post-training
  interaction revealed that the LSAs were able to
  apply the strategies collaboratively identified
  during the individualised training session

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In the post training questionnaire, the LSAs
reported that they felt more confident about the
strategies they employed when working with the
pupils after the training.
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Conclusions

• Using CA to examine the interactions closely
  enabled the identification of features of the
  pre-training interactions that would not have
  been demonstrable using other means of
  evaluation.

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Application of CA in the actual training
sessions was a practical and effective way to
enable the assistants to achieve insight into
their interactions and to collaboratively think
through alternative strategies which they were
then able to apply in the post-training
interactions
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Future implications

• The fact that different strategies were
  identified for each dyad has implications for
  generic training of strategies for children with
  SLCN..
• Following the research project presented today,
  further research was carried out to explore the
  use of CA in identifying improvements in the
  communication skills of the pupils
• The use of video feedback and CA with mainstream
  teachers is currently being investigated..

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Thank you

• For further information, please contact me
• at
• sophiemiles77_at_hotmail.com

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