Developmental Language Difficulties

Question 1

What do language difficulties include?

Answer 1

• Difficulty creating a narrative
• Difficulty linked words together
• Can’t be understood

Question 2

What is the incidence of SCLN?

Answer 2

• 5-year olds starting school in 2007 in England, approximately 7% had significant difficulties with speech and/or language
• Approximately 1% had the most severe and complex speech and language communication needs
• Approximately 50% of children in some socio-economically disadvantaged populations have speech and language and communication needs.

Question 3

What other factors may affect language development?

Answer 3

• Genetic factors including gender
• Sensory impairments
• Cognitive development
• Neurological/motor development
• Environmental

Question 4

What does it mean by language disorder?

Answer 4

• Children who have language difficulties that impact on their everyday social interactions or educational progress
• Language difficulties are likely to be long-term and persistent and are unlikely to resolve without specialist help

Question 5

What indicators and risk factors can be included when identifying those with DLD?

Answer 5

• Receptive as well as expressive language delay = more likely to have a persistent difficulty than if just expressive delay (Law et al 2000);
• Family history of persistent SLCN (Bishop 2002)
• Impaired performance on certain language tasks: e.g. recalling sentences (Everitt et al 2013)
• Some children may not show difficulties early on (18 mths but have late onset difficulties (30 mths) (Henrichs et al 2011)

Question 6

What can language disorders be associated with?

Answer 6

• ASD
• Brain injury
• Acquired epileptic aphasia
• (some) neurodegenerative conditions
• Genetic conditions e.g. Down syndrome, cerebral palsy
• Sensorineural hearing loss

Question 7

Does bilingualism cause language disorder?

Answer 7

BILINGUALISM DOES NOT CAUSE LANGUAGE DIFFICULTY

Question 8

What does language difficulty look like?

Answer 8

• Varied presentation – not a homogenous condition
• Expressive difficulties or both receptive and expressive
• Pattern of development may be like that of younger child or may be a different pattern of development
• May have difficulty with specific aspects of language e.g. vocabulary, grammar or pragmatics
• May be verbal or non-verbal
• May have speech difficulties – or not
• May have reading/writing difficulties – or not

Question 9

What is DLD?

Answer 9

A language disorder that is not associated with a known biomedical condition.