Overview

ELVS is a longitudinal epidemiological study of the emerging communication, language and literacy skills of approximately 1,900 Victorian children born in 2002.

This study is internationally unique in its coverage of:

• the pre-school period and in its depth of data from multi-source informant questionnaires
• direct assessment in language-related dimensions (speech, vocabulary, fluency literacy, cognition)
• psycho-social and educational domains (social, emotional and behavioural development
• quality of life, educational achievement, health care utilisation) and
• linkage to nationally acquired academic achievement data.

ELVS was designed to better understand language development, trajectories from infancy through to middle childhood, and factors that predict later outcomes. This information will be helpful in developing early intervention and prevention programs for children.

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Lily, a young woman with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) explains what it is like to live with this condition. Everyone who watches this video will learn something valuable about DLD. Made by @ilaria.illustrates (on Instagram).

Information for participants

ELVS families have so far helped researchers understand many aspects of communication development, including:

• Language
• Stuttering
• Genes and language development
• Multilingual development
• Speech sound disorders
• Links between memory and language
• Autistic spectrum disorder

ELVS is very lucky to have such committed families taking part in the years.

What has happened so far?

Recruitment: ELVS Babies

The Early Language in Victoria Study (ELVS) began in September 2003, and over 1900 families joined ELVS when their babies were eight to 10 months old. ELVS continued following the children until September 2007, when they had all turned four.

ELVS Children

In 2008, ELVS families were invited to take part in a new and exciting phase of the study. The aim was to understand language and reading development in the early school years. We are delighted that many families continue on our ELVS journey with us.

ELVS Adolescents

In 2012, the ELVS team was successful in receiving funding to follow up all the children when they were adolescents. Almost 1000 children were close to their 11th birthday, and parents and teachers provided data via questionnaires about communication and literacy skills. In 2016, researchers continued to collect data as the ELVS participants turned 13 years old. This has been helping provide some of the most comprehensive data ever gathered to examine how language continues to develop as children move into adolescence and settle into secondary school.

ELVS Adults

In 2020, the ELVS team was successful in receiving funding to follow ELVS participants during the late teenage years and into early adulthood. We began Phase II of this project when the participants were completing their final years of formal schooling. This follow-up aims to find out more about how language continues to develop as young people transition into adulthood and begin making decisions about their education, occupation, health, and wellbeing. This follow-up is being carried out by members of the ELVS Investigator Team based at the University of Melbourne.

Have your contact details changed?

If you have recently changed your contact details, please let us know. We would love to stay in touch.

Research team

ELVS is a longitudinal study of language development in Victorian children funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council.

The study has been approved by the Royal Children's Hospital Ethics Committee.

Phase II of the ELVS is being carried out by members of the ELVS Investigator Team based at the University of Melbourne. 

Previously, when ELVS participants were babies through to early adolescents, the project was based at The Royal Children's Hospital. Researchers were from the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, La Trobe University, the University of Melbourne, Macquarie University and the University of Sydney. The team included speech pathologists, a paediatrician, psychologists, linguists, researchers, biostatisticians and an epidemiologist.

Professor Sheena Reilly
Honorary Fellow
Available for Student Supervision

Publications

ELVS has published over 70 academic journal articles. We have listed the most recent publications below.

Preschool Language Surveillance Models-Cumulative and Clustering Patterns of Early Life Factors in the Early Language in Victoria Study Cohort. Frontiers in Pediatrics. 10: 18-. doi:10.3389/fped.2022.826817

Cook F, Conway L, Omerovic E, Cahir P, Giallo R, Hiscock H, Mensah F, Bretherton L, Bavin E, Eadie P, Brown S. (2021). Infant regulation: Associations with child language development in a longitudinal cohort. The Journal of Pediatrics. Feb 4.

Eadie P, Bavin EL, Bretherton L, Cook F, Gold L, Mensah F, Wake M, Reilly S. (2021). Predictors in infancy for language and academic outcomes at 11 years. Pediatrics. 147(2).

Cook F, Hippmann D, Omerovic E. (2020). The sleep and mental health of gifted children: A prospective, longitudinal, community cohort study. Gifted and Talented International. 35(1):16-26.

Pigdon L, Willmott C, Reilly S, Conti-Ramsden G, Liegeois F, Connelly A, Morgan AT. (2020). The neural basis of nonword repetition in children with developmental speech or language disorder: An fMRI study. Neuropsychologia. 138:107312.

Pigdon L, Willmott C, Reilly S, Conti-Ramsden G, Morgan AT. (2020). What predicts nonword repetition performance?. Child Neuropsychology. 26(4):518-33.

Unicomb R, Kefalianos E, Reilly S, Cook F, Morgan A. (2020). Prevalence and features of comorbid stuttering and speech sound disorder at age 4 years. Journal of Communication Disorders. 84:105976.

Westerveld MF, Paynter J, Brignell A, Reilly S. (2020). No differences in code-related emergent literacy skills in well-matched 4-year-old children with and without ASD. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 50(8):3060-3065.