As 2017 comes to a close, we wanted to highlight a few things we’re grateful for:

• Our LENA program partners doubled their reach in 2017 by impacting more than 3,200 children across the country and around the world. Taking it a step further, we’re committed to improving the early talk environment of 10,000 children per year by 2020, an initiative we’re calling Impact 10K.

• Families served by LENA measured more than 7 million conversational turns on LENA Days this year.
• LENA Grow, our professional development model for early childhood educators, saw enormous expansion from its 2016 pilot with our fantastic partners at the Early Learning Coalition of Escambia County, Florida. It is now part of professional development initiatives with several additional partners in 105 classrooms at 43 centers across 5 states, serving more than 850 children.
• “Early language is a central element in preparing children for school success, and early childhood educators play a key role in that development. We expect to see measurable gains in responsiveness through the combination of objective data and professional coaching.” – Susan Adams, DECAL Assistant Commissioner for Pre-K and Instructional Supports
• LENA Start tripled its reach, expanding from six communities to 16, serving a total of 70 groups. One parent shared how the program transformed her approach to reading.
• “The thing I found the most interesting in the classes was the difference between reading to and reading with a child.” – Lily Ellison, LENA Start parent graduate
• Children whose parents participated LENA Start gained nearly two months of developmental skill for every month their parents are enrolled in the program.

• In September, we held the 2017 LENA Early Language Conference, bringing together experts in social change, education, healthcare, funding, and research. If you’d like a summary of the topics discussed, download the conference white paper here.
• We achieved SOC 2 Type II certification. SOC stands for Service Organization Controls and this milestone reflects our continued commitment the highest level of data security for all of our partners.
• Our research team completed the Follow-up Normative Study (FUNS), which provided longitudinal validation of the importance of early talk.

As our partners complete work with their fall groups of parents and educators, we look forward to sharing more exciting data in early 2018. Happy holidays and warm wishes for a talk-filled new year!

LENA Team

The LENA Team is a dedicated group of professionals who are passionate about increasing awareness of the importance of early interactive talk. We are statisticians, speech-language pathologists, curriculum specialists, engineers, and linguists.