My research focusses on language assessment and intervention in children, including large-scale randomised control trials of school-based language interventions.

I was a Research Fellow and Lecturer at the Department of Education at the University of Oxford before joining UCL in 2023. Recent projects include evaluations of the Nuffield Early Language intervention (NELI), the development of an online teacher training and support model for the programme to enable delivery at scale and the subsequent rollout of NELI to over 10,000 schools between 2020 to 2022, funded by the DfE as part of its Covid 19-recovery effort. Watch a video of a NELI intervention session in action on a recent trial here.

I am also working on the development and evaluation via randomised controlled trial of an early language enrichment programme for children in nursery.  A successful efficacy trial funded by the Nuffield Foundation has been completed and the next stage of the research is underway. 

I am a Director of a University of Oxford spin out company, OxEd and Assessment Ltd, created to translate research into children’s language and reading difficulties into practical applications and am part of the development team behind LanguageScreen (www.languagescreen.com), an App used in schools to assess the language skills of children aged 3-8 years.

I completed my PhD at UCL, combining an interest in both memory and language to investigate the relationship between procedural and declarative memory processes and language in children.