Early intervention project: evaluation of WILSTAAR, Hanen and specialist playgroup

This paper describes an early intervention project which combines a three tiered approach to speech and language provision for pre-school children. Jointly funded by I CAN, AFASIC, Dorset Healthcare NHS Trust and the Department of Health, this two and a half year project aims to reduce the numbers of children and severity of their speech and language difficulties on entering school. The project uses the following approaches--the Ward Infant Language Screening Test Assessment Acceleration Remediation (WILSTAAR), the Hanen parent programmes and a specialist speech and language playgroup. In this paper these approaches are described with an explanation of how each is being evaluated and where possible interim results have been presented.