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Comparing specialist early years provision for speech and language impaired children with mainstream nursery provision in the UK - an application of the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS).

BACKGROUND
This study examines the application of the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS) to specialist early years provision for children with developmental speech and language impairment. The scale, which has been used in the national Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) study in the UK comprises seven subscales describing the quality of provision along a continuum centred on the following areas: 'space and furnishings', 'personal care routines', 'language reasoning', 'activities', 'interaction', 'program structure', and 'parents and staff'.


METHODS
The ECERS was applied to two nurseries funded by the UK charity I CAN by two researchers with inter-rater-reliability coefficients ranging from 0.91 to 0.96.


RESULTS
There were notable differences between the specialist early years provision and 'average' nursery provision in the UK. On 7/8 measures the early years centre scores are markedly higher than average pre-school provisions. The standard of education and care for the pre-school provisions included in the EPPE project ranged from below minimal (for the diversity subscale, ECERS-E) to approaching good (for the space and furnishings subscale). In contrast, the early years centres were rated as between minimal to good on areas such as space and furnishings and good to excellent on all other areas.


CONCLUSIONS
Clearly specialist services such as those described offer something different from the average. Given results which suggest the positive effects on the children's language abilities of such services it is quite possible that the distinctive characteristics of the nursery environment are responsible for the positive impact. There is a good case for extending the application of the ECERS as a way of helping those providing specialist services start to detect the active ingredients of the provision.