Speech and Language Therapy for Developmental Language Disorder

Developmental language disorder is a common but not widely known difficulty in learning language. It is not part of autism or related to a child’s ability to learn other skills. It is a very specific difficulty learning the language(s) they are exposed to and does not resolve with time. It used to be known as Specific Language Impairment (SLI).

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  • If your child has another area of difference, such as autism, they would not be considered to have developmental language disorder. In this case they would be described as autistic with an associated language disorder.

  • A diagnostic decision about DLD should take the following areas into account:

    • Reports from parents, teachers and other professionals

    • Speech and language assessment (formal and informal)

    • Functional impact of language difficulties

    • Observations within natural settings

  • Guidelines from the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) advise that the diagnosis of
    DLD should be given when:

    • The child has language difficulties that create barriers to communication or learning in everyday life

    • The child’s language problems are unlikely to be resolved by the age of 5 years

    • The problems are not associated with a known biomedical condition such as brain injury,
      neurodegenerative conditions or chromosome disorders.

  • In these cases, a full bi-or multilingual case history is required and standardised English formal assessment scores must be treated with caution. Learning more than one language is not a cause of language disorder.

  • Anna is currently using the Shape Coding approach with a 7 year old at school to teach grammatical structures visually.