Developmental Language Delay
What is developmental language delay (DLD)?
Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is the new term to replace Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Developmental Language Disorder is diagnosed when children fail to acquire their own language for no obvious reason. In 2017, a group of 59 experts—most, but not all, of whom were speech pathologists—from six different English speaking countries (29 from the United Kingdom, seven from the United States, eight from Canada, six from Australia, four from New Zealand, and three from Ireland) participated in a consensus-building exercise aimed at identification criteria and terminology. The group were called the CATALISE group (Bishop, Snowling, Thompson, Greenhalgh, & CATALISE Consortium, 2016; Bishop, Snowling, Thompson, Greenhalgh, & CATALISE-2 Consortium, 2017).
The group recommended that the term Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) be used to refer to neurodevelopmental language deficit.
DLD causes difficulties with speaking and understanding for no known reason. There are serious and long-term impacts, as it puts children at greater risk of failing at school and struggling with mental health and future employment. The biggest challenge with DLD is you can’t tell by looking at a person that they have DLD.
How can I help my child's speaking and listening skills development?
I CAN's Talking Point gives parents and carers the information they need to help children develop their speaking and understanding skills. If a child has difficulty with speaking, they may need help, or they may struggle in nursery or school.
I CAN has developed a range of resources and factsheets to help children with speech, language and communication needs.
At High View, we will regularly assess your child's speech and language development and will discuss with you, what support we are providing for your child should they need additional interventions.
Please see the I CAN website for further information: https://ican.org.uk/