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Professor Gina Conti-RamsdenUniversity of Manchester
Project overview
The transition from compulsory schooling to a much more choice-driven adult lifestyle provides an ideal context to investigate the educational and social outcomes of young people with specific language impairment (SLI).
The research team had been working with approximately 200 children with SLI who at 7 years of age were all attending specialist language units across England. This cohort entered their last year of compulsory education in September 2003. The team made use of the existing extensive psychometric and family data they had on the cohort.
In addition, they collected new educational and social data on the cohort and on two control groups: a) a normal control, same-age group with no history of SLI and b) unaffected siblings of the young people with SLI who fall in the age range of 14-18 years.
The aim of the project was to provide information that allowed to predict which young people with SLI are at risk of having educational and social difficulties in adolescence and why. As such the project had particularly important practical and policy implications.