City University London at the ESRC Festival of Social Sciences

Nov. 20, 2013 - PRLog -- Growing up with a language impairment

Dr Nicola Botting, from City University London's Division of Language and Communication Science, joined her co-investigators from The Manchester Language Study for a special research showcase event, held last week as part of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Festival of Social Science.

The Manchester Language Study is the largest and longest running UK study involving young people with language impairment. Individuals first recruited at the age of seven, have been monitored through adolescence and now into early adulthood to explore the impact of communication difficulties on their everyday lives.

The event included seminar presentations from Dr Botting and her colleagues, outlining their most recent research findings. There was also a small-group brainstorm activity on potential implications for policy and practice. Another panel discussion gave people the opportunity to feedback ideas for future phases of the on-going project.

Dr Botting commented: "City is a partner in the largest long-term study into developmental communication. The Festival gave us a valuable opportunity to tell researchers and clinicians about our recent work, and also to ask them how the project should move forward. Collaborative working is vital in order to really advance clinical understanding."

The European Social Survey visit the City of London Academy.

The European Social Survey (ESS) event for the ESRC Festival of Social Science; 'Understanding Research', was a chance for year nine maths students at the City of London Academy, Islington, to hear more about the coordination and execution of large-scale social surveys.

Dr Ana Villar, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Comparative Social Surveys, used interactive methods to help the Academy's students to understand how social surveys select respondents and how questions are developed.

In the final part of the special lesson, Dr Villar used example questions and results from the European Social Survey to demonstrate the differences in responses across Europe, with a special focus on UK results of the ESS.

Students were provided with ESS materials including its recently published findings booklet 'Exploring Public Attitudes, Informing Public Policy: Selected findings from the first five rounds' and ESRC information materials were also circulated.

The event was supported by Zohra Moledina, City University London's Partnerships Officer.

Follow the link to find out more about City University London’s School of Arts and Social Sciences (http://www.city.ac.uk/arts-social-sciences), which offers a number of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees (http://www.city.ac.uk/study/postgraduate) in topics such as Journalism, Music and Politics.