Supporting Children with DLD
A Picture Book and User Guide to Learn About Developmental Language Disorder
Kate Kempton
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Supporting Children with DLD
A Picture Book and User Guide to Learn About Developmental Language Disorder
Kate Kempton
About This Book
This picture book and guidebook set has been developed to help raise awareness of Developmental Language Disorder, and to highlight the impact of DLD from the child's point of view.
Harry's Story introduces a child who faces daily challenges in school due to his language difficulties. It explores how these challenges are made easier by his teachers' understanding and support as he finds new ways to communicate.
Supporting Children with DLD provides essential information, prompts and suggestions for adults to help understand the experience of children with DLD. It offers supportive strategies and activities to help children express themselves effectively and ask for help when they need it.
This resource can be used both directlywith children, aged 6-11, to talk about and explore DLD, and also as a training tool with the parents and professionals who support them. With research suggesting an average of two children per classroom are affected by DLD, this is an essential set for parents and professionals looking to understand the condition.
Frequently asked questions
Information
1. What is DLD?
Facts about DLD
- There is no known cause of DLD, but evidence suggests that biological environmental and genetic risk factors, can influence whether a child develops DLD (Bishop et al., 2017).
- DLD is not caused by another biomedical condition, such as cerebral palsy, a hearing loss, or autism spectrum disorder (Bishop et al., 2017). Children with these conditions generally do experience language difficulties but would be classed as having a language disorder alongside or associated with the other condition.
- DLD develops during the early years, but a diagnosis is rarely given to children under the age of five. Some children are slower to start talking but catch up spontaneously and have typical language skills by the time they start school. Other children, however, have language difficulties that persist beyond the age of five and this might be an indicator of DLD.
- Children with DLD typically experience difficulties with several different language skills, for example: understanding and remembering instructions; learning and remembering new words; understanding sentences; putting words and sentences in the right order; understanding jokes and sarcasm.
- DLD affects different children in different ways and each childâs strengths and needs will vary. This means it is essential to treat every child with DLD as an individual and find out how DLD is affecting them specifically.
- DLD is a long-term condition which means that people with DLD are likely to experience some challenges with language throughout their life.
Why do we need to raise awareness of DLD?
- DLD is much more common than you might think and affects just over 7% of children which is around two children in every class of 30 (Norbury et al., 2016).
- If more people learn about DLD it might make it easier for teachers and parents to recognise and understand the needs of these children.
- Children with DLD are often good at masking their language difficulties which means their needs may be missed.
- It is important for children with DLD to be identified earlier and given the specific support they need. When appropriate provision is offered, children with DLD can be helped to achieve their social and academic potential and the impact of their DLD can be reduced (Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, 2018).
- It is important that teaching staff know about DLD because these children are at greater risk of social and academic difficulties if their needs are not properly supported in the classroom environment (Catts et al., 2002). Children may struggle to keep up with lessons, if they donât understand the words or havenât understood what the teacher has explained to the class.
- Itâs important for children and young people to know about DLD too. It may help children with DLD understand their needs and why they find some things more difficult. It might also encourage people who donât have DLD, to listen and to be more empathetic to those who do.
What is language and why is it so important?
What is language?
- Language is a complex process involving successful integration of several different skills. It refers to how we understand and use words when they are arranged together in sentences.
- Understanding spoken language is referred to as âreceptive languageâ. Using spoken language is referred to as âexpressive languageâ.
- Children with DLD have primary difficulties with spoken language, however, in most cases written language skills will also impacted.
- Children with DLD experience difficulties learning their own language(s). Bilingual children can also have DLD, in which case they would have difficulties learning both or all the languages they are exposed to.