What Impacts the Data in LENA Reports?

LENA Grow reports reflect ups AND downs of a constantly changing classroom environment.

While many people hope for LENA reports to show a steady increase from week to week (and teachers are motivated when their conversational turns go up, too!), report data will likely go up AND down over time.

These factors are helpful to keep in mind and to discuss during coaching conversations: 

Attendance, staffing and ratios

Fluctuations in child attendance and/or changes in enrollment, or staffing can be a major source of data variability. For example, if multiple children are absent on a LENA Day, your data may not be easily compared to a previous LENA Day when everyone was present. Additionally, the presence or absence of a specific child or teacher can change the dynamic of the room enough to impact turns. 

The total number of children and the adult-child ratio on a LENA Day can also impact data. For example, in an infant or toddler room with fewer children and more adults per child, teachers may have an easier time engaging with each child. Conversely, in a preschool classroom with more children and fewer adults, it may be more challenging to engage in frequent turns with each child.

What to do:

• Encourage center directors to avoid moving staff or children to new classrooms during a LENA Grow sequence.
• Try to ensure all participating children are reflected on the reports starting with the first LENA Day (although it’s okay to add children if they enroll later in a sequence).
• Compare attendance to previous weeks' reports before drawing conclusions about significant decreases or increases in turns.
• Use the Interaction Chart on the second page of the Room Report to guide deeper discussions about how which adults and children are in the room can impact talk.
• If you believe ratios are impacting turn taking, look for consistent LENA data that illustrates this conclusion and share it with teachers and center directors so they can use that information to inform policies and coverage.

Substitutes

Since substitutes may not be as familiar with or focused on talking more with the children, data might be lower.

What to do:

• Make sure at least one teacher who participates in coaching is in the room for each LENA Day. If no participating teachers are present, hold off until they return.
• Encourage the LENA Grow teachers to share information about conversational turns and guide substitutes on the importance of interactions. 
• If possible, invite ALL staff who work in a LENA Grow classroom (including floaters and possible substitutes) attend Orientation so that they have information about the goals of the program.

Special events

Out-of-the-ordinary events on a LENA Day can cause excess variability. For example, children on a field trip may have fewer opportunities to interact with teachers but might hear more adult words than usual. If a LENA Day takes place on a day with one of these unusual events, the data may not represent a child’s typical language experience.

What to do:

• If the schedule allows, try to shift the LENA Day to a more typical day during the same week.

Day of the week

In many cases, one day of the week may not be comparable to another because of different routines and activities or the state of mind of the children and teachers.

What to do:

• Try to schedule LENA Days for the same day each week, or on days that are similar with respect to attendance and activities.
• Consider avoiding scheduling LENA Days on Mondays or Fridays. Many programs find the transition back into the week and fluctuations in attendance make these days inconsistent.

Noise

Think of the LENA device as a proxy for the human ear. When background noise is too loud, it is more difficult for LENA to identify human speakers, words, and turns. Classrooms are not quiet places, so some background noise is normal. If background noise is too loud for LENA, then we can assume that the children are not experiencing clear speech models either.

What to do:

• If data seems lower than expected, try doing a classroom observation to get an idea of the noise level.
• In coaching sessions, it may be helpful to talk about the importance of how the space is set up and the proximity between teachers and children when they are interacting. LENA picks up words and turns most accurately within about 6-10 feet.
• For further tips on reducing classroom noise levels, see LENA Grow Noise Recommendations.

Health/Mood

A child’s mood can significantly impact the frequency with which they interact. Likewise, if a teacher is managing a personal challenge, he/she may interact less frequently on that day due to stress or distraction. Illness can also bring the numbers down.

What to do:

• Use coaching sessions to reflect on how things are going, in general, for teachers and talk about how that is reflected in the data. We all have “off days,” and it’s important to see how that might change the way we interact.

The Hawthorne effect

 The “Hawthorne effect,” also known as the observer effect,  is a term used to describe how the act of being observed unintentionally changes our behavior. This effect often shows up as high numbers on the first LENA Day with large drops on subsequent LENA Days.

What to do:

• In coaching sessions, talk about the importance of building sustainable behavior change that lasts beyond a single LENA Day or coaching sequence.

Developmental delays

Children with language or developmental delays may take longer to respond to teachers’ attempts at engagement or may respond in non-verbal ways that LENA cannot detect (e.g., gestures, smiles, etc).

What to do:

• In these cases, be mindful of the child’s needs and the challenges that might prevent them from experiencing the same level of conversational turns as other children.
• Celebrate smaller increases or focus on how many adult words that child is experiencing. Even if the child has difficulty participating in a conversational turn, there is nothing to prevent teachers from providing lots of great language models!

LENA Grow data reflects the real-life classroom environment and every day is unique! Understanding the factors that impact the experience teachers and children are having is just as important as meeting goals and reaching benchmarks.

Use coaching sessions to dig deep into the story of each LENA Day so that teachers have the information they need to create a positive, nurturing environment!