# data[].attributes.body
now grab a bucket and a mop

# data[].attributes.headline
Engage with DLD - summaries & links to research

# data[].attributes.subject
Engage with DLD - summaries & links to research

# data[].attributes.body
Summaries and research via City University, Cambridge University and University of Bath. Includes links to open access papers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Please find below summaries of key DLD research findings. We hope these summaries are useful in improving your understanding of DLD.

Our understanding of DLD is always evolving as more research comes out - all recommendations found below are based on evidence but may change over time as our knowledge and understanding of DLD changes.

As everyone is unique, our recommendations may not suit all individuals with DLD. Please keep this in mind!

Toseeb, U., & St Clair, M. C. (2020). Trajectories of prosociality from early to middle childhood in children at risk of Developmental Language Disorder. Journal of Communication Disorders, 85.

Our aim was to look at how children with DLD develop prosocial skills and compare their prosocial skill development to children without DLD. We looked at how prosocial skills developed from age 5 to 11. We then looked at social, behavioural and emotional outcomes at age 11 in children with DLD. We looked at these outcomes when considering different types of prosocial development in childhood.

Children with DLD had slightly lower prosocial skills at age 5, 7 and 11 years old. This was when compared to children without DLD.

We found four groups of children with different prosocial development paths from age 5 to 11. Group 1 (18% of all children) had high prosocial skills across childhood. Group 2 (35% of all children) had a stable level of prosocial skills across development, but at a lower level. Group 3 (6% of all children) had high levels of prosocial skills early in childhood, but these reduced in middle and late childhood. Group 4 (41% of all children) had lower prosocial skills early childhood, but these increased to middle and later childhood.

Children with DLD were more likely to be in the "stable low" group (Group 2) and less likely to be in the group with high prosocial skills (Group 1) across development. Children with DLD were no more or less likely to be part of the other two groups.

Individuals with DLD who were in the groups that had lower prosocial skills at age 11 (Groups 2 and 3) had more emotional, peer, conduct and hyperactivity problems at age 11.

Where can I read this paper?

This paper is open access, which means everyone can read it. Please click to find the full paper.

DLD and Socialisation Strengths and Weaknesses

Lloyd-Esenkaya, V.; Russell, A.J.; Clair, M.C.S. What Are the Peer Interaction Strengths and Difficulties in Children with Developmental Language Disorder? A Systematic Review. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 3140.

This study looks at research measuring how of children with DLD play or interact with other children. We were interested to know how big the studies are, where in the world they are conducted, and who took part in the research (e.g. number of boys vs girls). We also wanted to know what the research has found out about the social skills of children with DLD.

Between 1981 - 2018, 28 studies have looked at the social skills of English-speaking primary school children with DLD.

Most studies took place in America (61%) or the UK (25%). More boys than girls took part in the research.

Most studies which looked at the children's overall social skills found higher levels of peer problems in children with DLD. However, every child is different! Not all children with DLD have difficulties socialising or making friends.

Sometimes researchers watch children while they are playing and record what they see. Many children with DLD have challenges joining in with their peers. They often wait for other children to invite them to play.

Unfortunately, children with DLD are more likely to be bullied than children without DLD.

Social skills in children with DLD is under-researched. We need to do more studies with larger groups of children to be sure of the findings. Right now, it is difficult to identify key social interaction styles which will apply to lots of children with DLD.

Children with DLD are likely to need extra support for their social skills. We know social skills are important for mental wellbeing and doing well in school. Teachers need to help prevent children with DLD from being bullied.

This study has shown there are many areas we need to understand better. Why do so many children with DLD experience peer problems? Most studies of social skills have focused on children's weaknesses, so what are their strengths?

Where can I read this paper?

This is an open access paper so anyone can read it. Click for the full paper.

Do peer problems influence emotional problems?

Forrest, C. L., Gibson, J. L., Halligan, S. L., & St Clair, M. C. (2018). A longitudinal analysis of early language difficulty and peer problems on later emotional difficulties in adolescence: Evidence from the Millennium Cohort Study. Autism & Developmental Language Impairments, 3.

We wanted to find out if peer problems (difficulties with friends) had an effect on emotional problems. We used data from the Millennium Cohort Study to examine a huge group of children and adolescents. We grouped them into children at risk of DLD or children with no language difficulties. We used teacher and parent's views on social problems and emotional wellbeing. We know there are higher rates of anxious and depressive feelings in young people with DLD. We tested whether the higher rates of anxious and depressive feelings were due to difficulties socialising, not just their language skills.

The Millennium Cohort Study is a large study of children born in the year 2000-2001 from across Britain. Children and their families were first interviewed at age 9 months and then followed up every few years at age 3, 5, 7, 11 and 14. The age 17 data has just been released. Using longitudinal data like this allows us to look at developmental patterns over time. We can also get a better understanding of why changes might be occurring.

We found that even children and adolescents who are at risk of DLD, but do not yet have a formal diagnosis, experience more difficulties with social and emotional wellbeing than their peers who do not have language difficulties. We also found that this difference in emotional wellbeing between the two groups was partly 'explained' by peer problems. That is, peer problems were seen to be influencing emotional problems. This was found at age 7 and age 14. So, peer problems at age seven influenced emotional problems at age seven. Also, these peer problems at age seven influenced later emotional problems at age 14.

This paper adds to a lot of other evidence that children and young people with DLD have more difficulties with social and emotional wellbeing than their peers without language difficulties. It also tells us that having difficulties with making friends can lead to negative feelings and emotions. Supporting a child to develop positive peer relationships and friendships may help to improve their emotional wellbeing.

Where can I read this paper?

This is an open access paper so anyone can read it. Click for the full paper.

Does emotion regulation affect peer problems and emotional problems?

Forrest, C. L., Gibson, J. L., Halligan, S. L., & St Clair, M. C. (2020). A Cross-Lagged Analysis of Emotion Regulation, Peer Problems, and Emotional Problems in Children With and Without Early Language Difficulties: Evidence From the Millennium Cohort Study. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 63(4), 1227-1239.

We wanted to find out if children and young people with DLD develop differently from their peers in terms of social and emotional wellbeing. We know that adolescents with DLD can experience more feelings of anxiety and depression, but we're not really sure how these difficulties develop. We investigated whether a difficulty with regulating emotions in the early years could be responsible for peer problems and emotional problems in later childhood and adolescence.

Using the Millennium Cohort Study we looked at emotion regulation difficulties, peer problems and emotional problems at 3, 5, 7, 11 and 14 years old. We compared children who were 'at risk of DLD' (rDLD) to children with no language difficulties. We found that children at risk of DLD had more difficulty managing their emotions, had more problems with friends and were more likely to experience feelings of worry or sadness than children without language difficulties. Poor emotion regulation at age 3, 5 and 7 was responsible for later peer and emotional problems at age 5, 7, 11 and 14 for both groups. There was a stronger link between poor emotion regulation abilities at age 3 and emotional problems at age 5 for the rDLD group. That is, children who struggled to manage their emotions at age 3 also had more feelings of sadness and worries at age 5. This effect was stronger in the rDLD group than for the group of children without a language difficulty. A similar finding was found in middle childhood - feelings of sadness and worries at 5 years of age led to more difficulties managing emotions at 7 years of age in children at risk of DLD. We also found that peer and emotional problems were associated with each other across development. That is, children who had difficulties with friends at age 3 also experienced more feelings of sadness and worries at age 5. Similarly, those with more feelings of sadness and worries at age 3 had more difficulties with friends at age 5. So children who have fewer friends felt more sadness but also children who feel sad have fewer friends.

This paper tells us that children and young people with language difficulties, such as DLD, have more difficulties with friends and poorer emotional wellbeing. We also know that children with language difficulties have more difficulty controlling their emotions than children without language difficulties. These early difficulties controlling emotions can increase feelings of sadness and worry. This might be because they have trouble labelling emotions or experience fewer social situations where they learn to control emotions. Perhaps more focus on naming emotions and modelling social situations could help to improve social and emotional difficulties. However, more research needs to be done in this area to figure out what is causing the difficulties in controlling emotions.

Where can I read this paper?

This is an open access paper so anyone can read it. Click for the full paper.

Emotional Health and Self-Efficacy

Play, Prosocial behaviours and DLD

Evidence based pathways for interventions for children with Language Disorders

Can Positive Aspects of Emotional Competence Prevent Internalizing Symptoms?

Samson, A. C., van den Bedem, N. P., Dukes, D., & Rieffe, C. (2020). Positive Aspects of Emotional Competence in Preventing Internalizing Symptoms in Children with and without Developmental Language Disorder: A Longitudinal Approach. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 1-13.

Previous research has suggested that children with developmental language disorder (DLD) experience a higher level of internalising problems. Internalising problems are mood problems, such depression and anxiety symptoms. In young children these can sometimes be complaints about their body, such as tummy aches. This study looks at whether positive emotions, emotional awareness, bodily awareness and communication skills protect children with or without DLD from developing internalising problems.

While better communication skills may help reduce internalising problems, positive emotions and emotion awareness still play an important role in protecting children from internalising problems. Language and communication interventions alone may not be enough to prevent or reduce internalising problems in children with DLD.

Therefore, this paper suggests that programmes and activities focusing on improving emotion awareness, alongside programmes focusing on language improvement, may be more promising in terms of reducing internalising problems in children with DLD.

Where can I read this paper?

This paper is open access, which means everyone can read it.

A possible neurocognitive explanation for DLD

Ullman, M. T., Earle, F. S., Walenski, M., & Janacsek, K. (2020). The Neurocognition of Developmental Disorders of Language. Annual Review of Psychology, Vol 71, 71, 389-417.

This paper reviews research in relation to a specific idea of what might be the brain and cognitive differences that cause DLD (as well as dyslexia and speech-sound disorders, such as stuttering). The paper looks at what is called the "Procedural circuit Deficit Hypothesis". This hypothesis states that the language learning difficulties in individuals with DLD are due to differences in the brain circuitry that supports procedural memory. However, a different memory system (declarative memory) is not affected in individuals with DLD. This paper reviews evidence that supports this idea.

Procedural memory is more developed in younger children. Declarative memory needs more time and develops across childhood. If language learning is initially reliant on procedural memory, difficulties in this system in children with DLD may cause early delays in language development.

Procedural memory has been shown to be important for grammar learning. For instance, the better a person's procedural memory, the better they use and understand grammar. However, grammar can be learned in both the procedural and declarative memory systems. As the declarative system needs time to develop in early childhood, this may be why there are delays in learning grammar in children with DLD.

Individuals with DLD have been shown to have structural differences in parts of the brain associated with procedural memory. However, researchers have not found consistent differences in the brains systems associated with declarative memory and learning. Overall, there is good evidence that problems with procedural learning may be the key problem in language learning in children with DLD.

These ideas do not mean that children with DLD can't learn from their procedural memory systems. But the ideas do indicate that their procedural learning is not as efficient as in children without DLD. Children with DLD are likely relying on the declarative learning and memory system, which tend to be used later in development. This may be why children with DLD learn language a bit later and with more effort than those without DLD.

Understanding the underlying reasons why children with DLD struggle to learn language is key for suitable therapy and treatment of DLD. Indeed, the authors suggest that there are "pharmacological, behavioural and other interventions" that can help enhance procedural and declarative memory ability. These interventions could be useful in children with DLD.

Where can I read this paper?

What elements predict concerns about the transition to secondary school?

Are young adults with DLD more or less likely to commit criminal offenses?

How aware is the public of DLD? A survey of public awareness in European Countries

Early language skills and emotional recognition in children with and without DLD

Autism Spectrum Disorder and Developmental Language Disorder

SLT experiences in diagnosis and assessing children with DLD

Can family involvement improve school adjustment in adolescents with DLD?

Rates of re-offending in young offenders with undiagnosed DLD

Listening to professionals, children and families to improve services for DLD in schools

Gallagher, A. L., Murphy, C. A., Conway, P. F., & Perry, A. (2019). Engaging multiple stakeholders to improve speech and language therapy services in schools: an appreciative inquiry-based study. BMC health services research, 19(1), 226.

Speech language therapists (SLTs) and teachers both play an important role in providing support for children with DLD in school, but they rarely work together. As a result, children with DLD may receiving less SLT service and support in school than needed. This paper aims to involve SLTs, teachers, parents and children with DLD in designing their ideal SLT service and support in school. This is done by having parents, SLTs and teachers take part in five group discussions, and having children with DLD take part in interviews.

Four key ideas appeared during the group discussions and interview:

1) The ideal support:

The ideal support should be tailored to the child's needs and interest. Tasks in school should be challenging yet possible to succeed. It is also important that the support targets difficulties other than language, such as social difficulties.

2) The ideal setting:

Parents, SLTs and teachers suggested that the ideal classroom setting should encourage listening and noticing. Children with DLD suggested that the ideal setting should be safe for taking risks, have consistent and clear rules, and allow children to have control in decisions. All the participants agreed that the ideal setting should be inclusive.

3) Priority outcomes:

Parents, SLTs and teachers said that a priority outcome is for children to connect with others. For example, children should have the opportunity to participate in class. Another priority outcome mentioned by children and parents is to understand social situations as well as other people. Other priority outcomes for children include managing their needs in school independently and learning to stand up for themselves.

4) The ideal service:

Parents, teachers and SLTs suggested that an ideal service should take the child's needs as its most important consideration. An ideal service should also be caring for the child and should involve the child and his/her parents in the process. However, SLTs, parents and teachers differed in their view of the SLTs role. While parents and teachers want the SLTs to be working in the classroom, SLTs suggested that they should act as advisors.

There are both similar and differing views between SLTs, teachers, parents and children with DLD in terms of their ideal services and supports in school. Similar views may provide a common ground for these groups to work together to improve support for children with DLD in schools.

The authors suggest that different groups might have different views because they have different experiences and a different focus. For example, children with DLD experience difficulties in school directly without knowing how supports for them are planned. Teachers and SLTs focus on planning support for children with DLD without experiencing their difficulties directly. Although these differences make it difficult for different groups to work together, addressing these differences may help improve SLT services and supports in school. So, parents are encouraged to express their views on SLT services and supports in school when suitable. Also, teachers and SLTs are encouraged to listen to children with DLD. Children should be able to have their say on the supports they are given in school.

Where can I read this paper?

This paper is open access, which means everyone can read it.

Please click to find the full paper.

Exploring sensory profiles

Simpson, K., Paynter, J., Ziegenfusz, S., & Westerveld, M. (2020). Sensory Profiles in School-Age Children with Developmental Language Disorder. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 1-10.

Previous research finds children with developmental conditions, such as autism and ADHD, frequently experiences sensory differences. Yet, there is little research on the sensory profile of children with DLD. This paper looks at the sensory profiles of children with DLD, and whether their sensory profiles are related to their language skills.

Sensory profile = response to sensory information (touch, taste, smell, sound, sight, balance and movement)

The findings of this paper suggest that many children with DLD face challenges in responding to sensory stimuli. This shows that children with DLD may affect multiple areas of development, not just language.

Previous studies suggested that abnormal sensory profile is related to poorer communication, and emotional/behavioural outcomes in autistic children and children with ADHD. Although little research has found similar relationships in children with DLD, identification of their unique sensory profiles may be important when providing tailored support during interventions.

Where can I read this paper?

This paper is not open access so we cannot provide a link at this time.

If you wish to read the full paper, please email E-DLD@bath.ac.uk.

Adlof, S. M. (2020). Promoting Reading Achievement in Children With Developmental Language Disorders: What Can We Learn From Research on Specific Language Impairment and Dyslexia?. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 63(10), 3277-3292.

Both Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and dyslexia are disorders that can affect reading comprehension. It is now known that the disorders are different but often occur together. However, these two disorders have largely been studied separately. This paper aims to integrate research on DLD and dyslexia as well as to promote the need of considering both disorders together in the future.

More research that looks at children is still needed to improve our understanding about the characteristics and causes of DLD and dyslexia. Knowing about how DLD and dyslexia develop may help improve diagnosis and intervention for these conditions.

A core finding of this paper is the under-identification of DLD. Not only does this present a challenge for research, it also means that some children with DLD are unable to receive the help that they need. To tackle this issue, speech and language therapists should help increase awareness of the role of oral language skills on reading comprehension. Also, all children known to have reading problems should be given an assessment of their language skills. Knowing that DLD and dyslexia often occur together could help to stop DLD from being hidden.

Where can I read this paper:

This paper is open access, which means everyone can read it.

Social cognition and socio-emotional functioning

How one preschool language unit supports children

Harvey, H., & Spencer, S. (2019). Specialist provision for language disorder: Staff and service user views of a preschool language unit. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 35(2), 93-111.

Preschool language units (PLU) are designed to support children with severe and complex language disorders in mainstream schools by providing speech and language therapy and curriculum delivery. This paper aims to understand how a PLU supports children with language disorder. Children and teaching staff are asked for their views using interviews. Parents are asked for their views using questionnaires.

The participants brought up four key points:

Teaching staff and parents suggested that the format of the PLU helped children to become more confident and helped their language skills develop. Children have mixed opinions about joining the mainstream nursery in the day. Some children enjoy having more friends and outdoor space in the mainstream section. Others prefer the quiet in the PLU.

2. The importance of relationships

Children, parents and teaching staff all found relationships built within the PLU valuable. Parents value their relationships with teachers. Children value their relationships with teachers and friends. Teaching staff value their relationships within the staff team. Teaching staff believed that good communication between a team of professionals, including a Speech and Language Therapist, was very important for supporting the children's language development.

Parents and teaching staff agreed that the PLU has a low number of pupils. Opinions on whether this is needed varied. Some thought that a bigger group would be better. Others thought that keeping a low number is more manageable for staff and pupils. Although the PLU is oversubscribed, limitations such as space, resources and class management prevent wider access to the PLU.

Parents and teaching staff considered the PLU to be preparation for moving into mainstream schools. PLU was considered important for supporting the development of children's language skills as well as other specific skills required in a school setting, such as sitting still.

The PLU in this paper is highly regarded by the children, parents as well as teaching staff, who believe the PLU gives positive early educational and social experiences. Features that are perceived to be important for the success of the PLU include: class size, consistent daily routine, approachable staff and extra support for socialising.

This paper only studied one PLU and the responses received may not apply to all other PLUs. However, this paper is useful for giving the first rich description of a specialist preschool resource base for children with language disorders.

Where can I read this paper?

This paper has been made open access, which means everyone can read it.

Peer social networks and DLD

Chen, J., Justice, L. M., Rhoad‐Drogalis, A., Lin, T. J., & Sawyer, B. (2020). Social networks of children with developmental language disorder in inclusive preschool programs. Child development, 91(2), 471-487.

Previous studies have suggested that children with DLD are more likely to struggle in social interactions and peer relations. As a result, the chances of experiencing peer rejection and victimization is concerning. This paper aims to understand the peer social network of children with DLD with their typically developing classmates in an inclusive preschool classroom.

Peer social network: play interactions formed by children within a classroom.

The findings of the paper raise concerns about the peer social networks of children with DLD, as there are nearly twice as many children with DLD experiencing isolation than typically developing children in their preschool years. The 37% rate of peer isolation in children with DLD is similar to the rate of peer interaction problems seen in older children with DLD in other studies. This suggests that problems with peer interaction commonly seen in children with DLD may appear as early as the preschool years and are likely to persist throughout childhood.

Children's peer relationships can influence their academic and social outcomes. It is important for educators to be aware of the problem of peer rejection and isolation for children with DLD. Interventions that promote social competence and social problem-solving skills may be introduced to help children with DLD develop positive peer interactions.

Where can I read this paper?

This paper is not open access so we cannot provide a link at this time.

If you wish to read the full paper, please email .

Predicting reading outcomes

Intervention for spoken language and reading difficulties

Munro, N., Lee, K., & Baker, E. (2008). Building vocabulary knowledge and phonological awareness skills in children with specific language impairment through hybrid language intervention: A feasibility study. International journal of language & communication disorders, 43(6), 662-682.

Children with DLD often struggle with spoken language and are at risk of reading difficulties. However, there is little research on interventions that target both spoken language and emergent reading abilities. This paper aims to determine whether a hybrid language intervention that targets vocabulary knowledge and phonological awareness should be further researched.

Emergent reading abilities: abilities that precedes and contributes to the development of reading skills.

Phonological awareness: the ability to use and reflect upon the sounds of spoken language. This ability is important for reading skills.

After the intervention, children improved in phonological awareness and vocabulary knowledge.

The children also improved in skills that were not targeted in the intervention, for example listening comprehension and storytelling.

The findings of this paper provide initial support for a hybrid language intervention that targets vocabulary knowledge and phonological awareness. As children with DLD have different language difficulties, hybrid language interventions can be useful as speech and language therapists can help support both their spoken and written language needs. Further research and clinical trials may help determine the effectiveness of this intervention.

Where can I read this paper?

Cell phone use in adolescents with DLD

Conti-Ramsden, G., Durkin, K., & Simkin, Z. (2010). Language and social factors in the use of cell phone technology by adolescents with and without specific language impairment (SLI). Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 53(1), 196-208.

Mobile technology has affected how people communicate and connect with one another. While many studies have looked at the use of mobile/cell phones by adolescents, little is known about adolescents with DLD. This paper aims to compare mobile/cell phone use in adolescents with and without DLD. This paper also looks at whether language factors and social factors affect mobile/cell phone use in adolescents.

Language factors include oral language, reading, and spelling ability.

Social factors include shyness, friendships, and social motivation to use a cell phone.

Like their peers without DLD, adolescents with DLD are motivated to use mobile/cell phones for their convenience, freedom, privacy, and safety. The findings of this paper suggest that frequency of cell phone use in adolescents with DLD is not related to their language ability. The authors suggest that it is because the language requirement for communication via cell phones is more relaxed, such that adolescents with DLD do not find texting and phoning difficult.

However, adolescents with DLD text less frequently due to social factors, such as shyness and friendship difficulties. The less frequent use of texting may later reduce their opportunity for social interaction, given that texting is an important method for social connection among adolescents. It is important to address potential social difficulties when supporting adolescents with DLD.

Where can I read this paper?

This paper is not open access so we cannot provide a link at this time.

If you wish to read the full paper, please email .

Young adults with DLD: managing finances

Economic costs and benefits of Speech and Language Therapy

Tele-practice intervention

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Our research | Engage with Developmental Language Disorder

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Please find below summaries of key DLD research findings. We hope these summaries are useful in improving your understanding of DLD. Our understanding of DLD is always evolving as more research comes out - all recommendations found below are based on evidence but may change over time as our knowledge and understanding of DLD changes.

# data[].attributes.headline
How to teach vocabulary for reading comprehension

# data[].attributes.subject
How to teach vocabulary for reading comprehension

# data[].attributes.body
Blog post from Emina McLean

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Vocabulary tiers
Vocabulary can be divided into three tiers. They are:

Tier 1 - common in oral language, likely learned from everyday experiences (e.g. 'eat', 'animal')

Tier 2 - academic, procedural, common in written language, essential for reading and writing (e.g. 'evaluate', 'conceptualise')

Tier 3 - domain specific, common in written language, essential for specific/specialist subject study (e.g. 'isotope', 'aphasia')
How we learn words
When we first start learning words we are very young. For most children this happens through hearing speech sounds joined together to form words and having word meaning attached to that sound combination. This is phonological input and semantic association. In the simplest terms, we need to hear the word and we need someone to tell us the meaning that goes with the word's sound properties.

Think about watching a baby. How do they learn a word? An adult will say, 'mumma' and refer to themselves, or say 'dog' over and over and point or refer to a dog (real, toy or in a book). So that's the first part. That is how Tier 1 vocabulary develops. Phonological input paired with meaning association.

Semantic mapping (the pairing of sound with meaning) happens via what is called fast and slow mapping.

Fast mapping: To start laying down new lexical representations, students initially hear a new word, they store its phonological form and begin to map semantic features to that form. Think quick and superficial from a few exposures.

Slow mapping occurs over an extended period. Students continue to hear the word and they refine the phonological and semantic representations of the word as it occurs and reoccurs in various contexts. Slow mapping leads to deep word learning and by extension, comprehension growth. So, it is slow and occurs after many, many exposures.

Children with language and/or learning difficulties typically have slower fast and slow mapping so they need more exposures at both fast and slow mapping stages.

Many words that occur frequently in text (especially academic texts), occur infrequently in everyday spoken language. Students are therefore unlikely to learn academic language through spoken language. That also means that students from early to mid-primary school and beyond will come across unknown words all the time when reading. When there are many words that they don't know this can be quite disruptive for Reading Comprehension (RC). Of course there is no way we can teach students all words. Through reading we continue to learn new words for most of our life. But, if we explicitly teach academic language we can reduce the number of unknown words they encounter when reading over time.

So, on top of phonological and semantic input, for RC they also need:

- Multiple exposures to the orthographic representation

- Multiple exposures to the word in a variety of sentences types (varying syntax)

- Multiple exposures to the word's diverse morphology (i.e. to understand how the word can be modified and to what effect)

When we come across an unknown word in oral language phonological input comes first and meaning is mapped to that. In text, orthographic input comes first and meaning begins to be mapped to that. Either way, for rich mental representations of word meaning to develop, we need all of the above to occur.
How well we know a word
"Knowing a word is not an all or nothing proposition" (Beck et al., 2015, p.10).

Have a look at these two models:

Dale (1965) describes our word knowledge levels as:

1. Never saw it before

2. Heard (or saw) it but don't know what it means

3. Recognise it in context as having something to do with _______.

4. Know it well

Beck, McKeown & Omanson proposed a more detailed model in 1987:

1. No knowledge

2. General sense (e.g. I know it means something bad)

3. Narrow, context-bound knowledge

4. Has knowledge of the word but is unable to recall it readily enough to use it/know it in an appropriate situation

5. Rich, de-contextualised knowledge of a word's meaning, its relationship to other words, and its extension to metaphorical uses

Beck, McKeown and Kucan (2013) describe this in detail in their book which I have put as a suggested resource below. Developing high quality mental representations of words involves teaching all aspects detailed above. Make sure your vocabulary instruction has a large focus on text level language. Multiple repetitions and/or multiple encounters are required. We are aiming for "rich, de-contextualised knowledge of a word's meaning, its relationship to other words, and its extension to metaphorical uses" (Beck, McKeown and Kucan, 2013, p.11).
The aim is a literate lexicon
"The 'literate lexicon' includes difficult words that occur in academic contexts, particularly in middle school and high school classes that students often take. In science, for example, students may encounter words such as prediction, deformable, exploration, and genetic; in mathematics, literate words may include algebraic, Pythagorean, transformation, and geometric; and in literature, students may encounter affectation, luminous, meticulous, and contiguous (Nippold, 2017a). Of note, all of these words are morphologically complex in that they each contain a root word and one or more affixes (prefixes and suffixes) and that all of the words express abstract meanings and have a low frequency of occurrence in the language." ( Nippold, 2018, p.211-212)

A literate lexicon includes well developed Tier 2 (and 3) vocabulary. The capacity to define words, and create associations, combinations, and relations between words, are critical skills in the academic context, and they are essential skills for RC. Learning in context is not enough.

Good vocabulary knowledge is associated with good RC in the literature. Knowing many words in oral language is helpful for RC, but what is more helpful is knowing many words in the context of text. As much as possible we should base our vocabulary work in text. My view is that it is best to develop Decoding (D)/Word Recognition (WR) and oral language in the first two years of school then get stuck into text-level approaches as detailed below.

How to choose words

Beck, McKeown and Kucan (2013) and others are clear that Tier 2 words are the most important and valuable to teach. Of course, domain specific words matter too (Tier 3). The work of Averil Coxhead (2000) has been so helpful in this regard. She developed and evaluated The Academic Word List (AWL) as part of her master thesis.

If you are interested in reading about the development, evaluation and later reflections, these are the details you will need:
Coxhead, A. (2000). A new Academic Word List. TESOL Quarterly, 34(2), 213-238. Coxhead, A. (2012). The Academic Word List 10 years on: Research and teaching implications. TESOL Quarterly, 45(2), 355-362.
Some word list links are provided in the suggested resources below.

Deliberate, direct, teacher-led instruction

I mostly use the work of Hollingsworth and Ybarra (2018) to guide me in developing instruction and lesson plans. I've listed their book below in the suggested resources.

Below is a brief sample outline of part of one lesson. It's an example of what the first slide might look like when teaching a new word. I've chosen a rare word to make this is bit more interesting for you. I suggest developing a base slide or two. Develop a list of Tier 2 words that you want to teach. You can then insert the target word and appropriate examples for each slide.
_________________________________________________________________________
absquatulate

Definition: To leave suddenly or abruptly

Synonyms: abscond, bolt, depart, disappear, flee, scram, run off

Antonyms: stay, arrive, stand still
Sentence examples:
During the important meeting, the woman apologised about her need to absquatulate.

I was at the park hoping my toddler would not absquatulate like last time.

When caught digging in the garden my dog seems to absquatulate.
This is tedius. In my mind I am absquatulating. The shopkeeper absquatulated with the day's earnings. As an introvert, absquatulation is my favourite pastime.
_________________________________________________________________________

Here are some examples of partial scripts and steps to guide you:

Today we are going to learn a new word.

Repeat both the word and the meaning 2-3 times.

Activate prior learning and link to real life examples.

Ask students to tell you (out loud) what the word is.

Ask students to tell their partner what the word is.

Ask the students to write the word.

Then I'll say the word again and they'll say the meaning (all aloud)

Then I'll say the meaning and they'll say the word (all aloud)

I will ask 1-3 students to tell me the meaning of the word (random selection)

Then: Let's talk about some synonyms. Remember a synonym is a different word with the same meaning. [go over the synonyms]

Let's talk about some antonyms. Remember an antonym is a different word with the opposite meaning, [go over the antonyms]

Present written sentence examples. Start simple and straightforward (3-5 clear sentence examples that use the word correctly). You can use a picture to support each sentence if you'd like.

Present some written sentences where it is used correctly and incorrectly and get them to identify which are examples and non-examples. I expect them to justify in full sentences why.

Get them to write three different sentences using the word (give feedback/get them to share).

Notice in the examples I've provided that there is an increase in complexity (via morphology). Depending on their level, you can play around with morpheme additions. Do not do this in the first instance but something like this is a good task for students during guided and independent practice. You can get students to write a range of sentences using various affixes with the root words and these can then be discussed as a whole class or they can discuss with their peers and compare/contrast their examples.

Another step-up task could be to have students write/describe a time they felt a need to absquatulate and why. This requires them to demonstrate a deeper knowledge of the word (an application).

Further step-ups relate to learning to play with the word meaning in their writing. Being able to use a word to evoke emotions, to induce laughter, to set a scene or mood, are all ways students demonstrate to us they have developed a deep knowledge of the word meaning.

Remember Beck, McKeown & Omanson's (1987) stages of word knowledge from above:

1. No knowledge

2. General sense (e.g. I know it means something bad)

3. Narrow, context-bound knowledge

4. Has knowledge of the word but is unable to recall it readily enough to use it/know it in an appropriate situation

5. Rich, de-contextualised knowledge of a word's meaning, its relationship to other words, and its extension to metaphorical uses

Your vocabulary instruction is building stages 2-5, so sequence your instruction accordingly. Start basic and move to more complex. Stage 5 really develops over time after reading (and writing) the word in many contexts, for many purposes and audiences, and attaching and detaching various morphemes from its root. Stage 5 can't necessarily be taught, but set them up as best you can for this to develop over time. As the minimum, when they come across words in text that we have explicitly taught them, we want them to be at Level 3 (above).

In-context instruction and strategies for students

Of course, in-context instruction matters too. Some would say it matters more! Teaching students to monitor and self-manage their comprehension is vital. We need to explicitly teach them how to do this, not just expect them to figure it out. There are two main ways we can do this.
Contextual abstraction
This is a fancy term for guessing. Guessing is not okay when we are teaching Decoding (D)/Word Recognition (WR) as per the Simple View of Reading (SVR), but it is strongly encouraged in the Linguistic Comprehension (LC) aspect of the SVR. This is an important distinction. We need to teach students how to make informed guesses as to the meanings of unknown words, when possible.
The four contexts (as per Beck, McKeown & Kulcan, 2013, page 7)
How easy or hard unknown words are to guess the meaning for depends on the context within which they occur. The four contexts unknown words occur in are listed here from easiest to hardest:

1. Directive - the context is likely to lead to the student identifying the correct meaning

2. General - the context provides enough information for the student to place the word in a general category

3. Non-directive - the context is likely to offer no assistance as to the word's meaning

4. Mis-directive - the context is likely to direct the student to the opposite meaning
Some key questions for students to ask
Teach students how to interrogate text-level language through demonstration and provision of guided practice, then support students to be able to do this for themselves. Key questions that we want them to be able to ask when confronted with unknown words are:

1. What is the purpose of the unknown word here? Is it acting as a noun, verb, adjective etc.? Obviously, you need to have explicitly taught word categories previously.

2. What is going on around this word? Look at meaning word by word then overall in the sentence or paragraph. Look at syntax. What is the structure telling us in part or in its totality?

3. What detail or idea is missing that this word could account for?

Then students are expected to make some educated guesses. This can be done by inserting some words they know the meaning for, in place of the unknown word. Then their role is to decide what the added word does to the sentence in terms of meaning and structure.

4. What does the hypothesised word meaning do to this sentence? Do I think I am on the right track?

5. [ask a peer] Do you think this makes sense? Why or why not? Do you have any other suggestions? What is the reasoning behind your suggestions?

Given the four contexts that I have described above, these questions can vary in their effectiveness but students are always taking something away from this learning experience with respect to their LC and Reading Comprehension (RC) if we are encouraging them to analyse and deduce in such a structured and thorough way.

In your deliberate direct vocabulary instruction you can also incorporate these contexts i.e. explicitly teach students that words can and do appear in these four contexts. Get students to write sentences with the new word(s) they have learned in the lesson, using them in each of the four ways. They can then swap with their partners/peers and compare/contrast.
Morphological analysis
First students need to know what morphemes are and how to identify them. Teaching vocabulary requires teaching morphology. A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaningful information within a word. There are two different ways we can categorise and describe morphemes.
Free and bound morphemes
In the word 'cats' there are two meaningful elements. The 'cat' part tells us we are talking about an animal that can be a pet, it has whiskers, it purrs, it can scratch etc. The 's' part tells us that there is more than one cat. This is the plural 's' marker.

'Cat' is what we call a free morpheme because it is free to stand alone. We can also refer to this as the root word. The 's' is what we call a bound morpheme because it needs to be bound to another word to function. On its own it does nothing.
Lexical and grammatical morphemes
Morphemes can be lexical (function as key markers of meaning) or grammatical (function as key markers of grammar).

Lexical morphemes have dictionary definitions i.e. they are free morpheme/root words. Lexical morphemes can also be affixes like 'pre-' meaning 'previous to' or 'before'. The key here is that they have meaning as opposed to grammatical function.

The word 'happy' is a lexical morpheme. It has a dictionary definition.The word 'happily' has two morphemes. The '-ly' is a grammatical morpheme. An adjective has been changed to an adverb. Morphemes are grammatical when they perform a strictly grammatical function. They are not words. They are morphemes. Some suffix examples are:

- Present progressive -ing

- Plural 's'

- Past tense -ed

I suggest explicitly teaching affixes. The direct teaching advice I gave above works fine for this. You can find lists of prefixes and suffixes online and there are some structured word approaches available. With younger students (early years) I suggest teaching grammatical morphemes first, orally and in text form, then you can focus on teaching the many lexical bound morphemes (prefixes and suffixes) in text form from mid-primary school onward.

Teaching students to complete morphological analysis once the above has been taught:

1. Model how to do it many times

2. Guided practice with feedback

3. Independent practice

We want them to be able to independently:

1. Identify the number of morphemes

2. Identify the root word (free morpheme) and the affixes (bound morphemes)

3. Identify the meaning of as many morphemes as possible

4. Ask themselves whether this looks like or sounds like any other words that they know

5. Make a guess as to what the collective meaning could be and how morphemes are influencing one another

6. Discuss with a peer and compare ideas

7. Ask the teacher for support (provide explicit direct instruction as required)
A final note on in-context learning
There is of course scope for direct instruction in-context too, for one student, a small group, or the whole class as appropriate. I often encourage students to use their strategies first but when I can see that the context of the word is mis-directive or non-directive I will usually break from the task to explicitly teach it. Remember, strong mental representations require phonological, semantic, orthographic, and morphological features to be taught and reinforced multiple times in multiple contexts.

What the literature tells us

- Vocabulary is a predictor of RC in children and adolescents

- Once students are reading, vocabulary development depends on exposure to print NOT oral language

- Explicit teaching of words alone is insufficient and in-text/in-context experiences are vital

- Explicit vocabulary instruction research findings are mixed i.e. some studies only show improved RC for words learned, not general RC improvement (e.g. Elleman et al., 2009; Wright & Cervetti, 2017)

- Less skilled readers benefit more from explicit vocabulary instruction than skilled readers (therefore it makes a good RtI Tier 2 intervention for those who are behind)

- Interactive instruction is better than definition/dictionary based. I've described above some ways to ensure you do this. Do not get students to look up unknown words in the dictionary. Word learning has to go so much deeper.

Suggested resources

Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction by Beck, McKeown & Kucan (2013)

Explicit Direction Instruction: The Power of the Well-Crafted, Well-Taught Lesson by Hollingsworth & Ybarra (2018)

Understanding and Teaching Reading Comprehension: A Handbook by Oakhill, Cain and Carsten (2015) [Chapter 5 - Knowing and Learning the Meaning of Words]

LSHSS Forum on Vocabulary Across the School Grades: https://academy.pubs.asha.org/2019/10/lshss-forum-on-vocabulary-across-the-school-grades/

https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/lals/resources/academicwordlist (Coxhead, 2000)

http://www.uefap.com/vocab/select/awl.htm (based on Coxhead, 2000)

http://www.newgeneralservicelist.org/nawl-new-academic-word-list (Browne, 2013)

https://cer.schools.nsw.gov.au/professional-learning/middle-years.html (NSW Centre for Effective Reading, nd)

Professor Pamela Snow provides an introduction to vocabulary instruction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aAsP_my4Do&feature=youtu.be

Emina McLean talks about how to teach vocabulary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfTz3-2HtaI&feature=youtu.be

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to teach vocabulary for reading comprehension

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A little about vocabulary Vocabulary tiers Vocabulary can be divided into three tiers. They are: Tier 1 - common in oral language, likely learned from everyday experiences (e.g. 'eat', 'animal') Tier 2 - academic, procedural, common in written language, essential for reading and writing (e.g. 'evaluate', 'conceptualise

# data[].attributes.headline
Common questions about bilingualism / multilingualism and DLD

# data[].attributes.subject
Common questions about bilingualism / multilingualism and DLD

# data[].attributes.body
Informed evidence-based answers from the Multilingual & Multicultural Affairs Committee of the International Association of Communication Sciences & Disorders.

# data[].attributes.headline
Supporting New Word Learning in Secondary Schools 

# data[].attributes.subject
Supporting New Word Learning in Secondary Schools 

# data[].attributes.body
from Dr Sarah Spencer

# data[].attributes.headline
Life as an adult with Developmental Language Disorder

# data[].attributes.subject
Life as an adult with Developmental Language Disorder

# data[].attributes.body
Adults with DLD narrate this beautifully crafted animation about Developmental Language Disorder, its impact on adults, what helps and what they need

# data[].attributes.body
Ellen's story

# data[].attributes.headline
Engage with Developmental Language Disorder (E-DLD) Project

# data[].attributes.subject
Engage with Developmental Language Disorder (E-DLD) Project

# data[].attributes.body
The E-DLD project links researchers with those affected by Developmental Language Disorder, childhood language disorder or communication impairment.

The E-DLD team invites individuals with DLD and their families to sign up to our newsletter and yearly survey.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Home | Engage with Developmental Language Disorder

# data[].attributes.headline
A Family Guide to Understanding a Diagnosis of DLD

# data[].attributes.subject
A Family Guide to Understanding a Diagnosis of DLD

# data[].attributes.body
1. What is DLD?

2. What causes DLD?

3. What can you do to support your family member with DLD?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
If your family has recently received a DLD diagnosis and you are looking for more information on what that means you've come to the right place! In this brief 30 minute online module Shaun Ziegenfusz, Co-Founder of The DLD Project and expert speech pathologist, will answer three main questions:

1. What is DLD?

2. What causes DLD?

3. What can you do to support your family member with DLD?

To celebrate DLD Awareness Day 2020 we will be making this online module FREE for the month of October. Please feel free to share this great resource widely so we can support as many families as possible.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Family Guide to Understanding a Diagnosis of DLD - The DLD Project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If your family has recently received a DLD diagnosis and you are looking for more information on what that means you've come to the right place! In this brief 30 minute online module Shaun Ziegenfusz, Co-Founder of The DLD Project and expert speech pathologist, will answer three main questions: What is DLD?

# data[].attributes.headline
What is Developmental Language Disorder?

# data[].attributes.subject
What is Developmental Language Disorder?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What is Developmental Language Disorder?

# data[].attributes.body
Information, videos, links and strategies for teachers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
An overview of Developmental Language Disorder with teacher strategies, links to videos, websites and other resources. Created as part of the 2020 International Developmental Language Disorder Awareness Day campaign.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Developmental Language Disorder - a snapshot

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An overview of Developmental Language Disorder with teacher strategies, links to videos, websites and other resources. Created as part of the 2020 International Developmental Language Disorder Awareness Day campaign.

# data[].attributes.headline
Inclusive Education - Essential Knowledge for Success

# data[].attributes.subject
Inclusive Education - Essential Knowledge for Success

# data[].attributes.body
Free online course from QUT

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Other courses you might like

This course isn't running right now. We can email you when it starts again, or check out these other courses you might like.

Learn how to uphold the rights of all students to be included.

All students should feel like they have the same opportunities to participate and achieve in education. Through this course with QUT, you will learn the concepts that underpin inclusive practice.

You will learn the history of inclusive education, and how it differs from integration and special education. You will also explore what you as an educator, professional or parent can do to uphold a student's right to inclusive education.

What topics will you cover?

What is inclusive education?

Concepts that underpin inclusion

Inclusive education in context

Learning on this course

On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

Explain the history of inclusive education

Compare integration, special education and inclusive education

Describe educators' obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)

Explain the social model of disability and universal design principles

By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

Who is the course for?

This course is for teachers, other professionals and parents looking to understand genuine inclusion in education.

Learning on FutureLearn

Your learning, your rules

Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning

Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities

Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores

Join a global classroom

Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners

Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course

Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others

Map your progress

As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning

Whenever you're ready, mark each step as complete, you're in control

Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate

Learner reviews

Learner reviews cannot be loaded due to your cookie settings. Please activate all cookies and refresh the page to view this content.

Get a taste of this course

Find out what this course is like by previewing some of the course steps before you join:

Do you know someone who'd love this course? Tell them about it...

You can use the hashtag to talk about this course on social media.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Online Inclusive Education Course - FutureLearn

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Other courses you might like This course isn't running right now. We can email you when it starts again, or check out these other courses you might like. All students should feel like they have the same opportunities to participate and achieve in education.

# data[].attributes.headline
Useful instruction for children and adolescents

# data[].attributes.subject
Useful instruction for children and adolescents

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Susan Ebbels, Ph.D.
Director, Moor House Research and Training Institute

Language and communication skills are vital in our personal, social and work lives in a highly verbal world. All children deserve access to an education that promotes good spoken and written communication skills. Children with DLD may require additional support in these areas. This support can take many different forms:

Extra support in the classroom, preferably using a language program with good evidence of effectiveness and delivered by someone with sufficient training and time to deliver it well

Additional training, support and coaching for those caring for and working with the child

Collaboration between Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs), teachers and parents

Individualized intervention led by an SLP focused on the specific needs of the child

This post will focus only on the last of these.

Individualized Intervention Led by an SLP

Many studies indicate that individualized intervention can improve the language skills of children with DLD, especially their expressive language and vocabulary. However, some children make more progress than others. Most studies involved intervention delivered directly by an SLP in-person to an individual child; a few examined small-group intervention. Good evidence exists that telehealth can also be helpful.

Individualized intervention can be successfully delivered by others when the intervention is planned by the SLP and the SLP has given sufficient coaching to the person delivering the intervention. We have good evidence that parents can deliver this intervention, and emerging evidence that teachers and support staff can as well, as long as they are given sufficient time to do so with easy access to support and coaching.

The evidence for the helpfulness of intervention for children with severe DLD, including those with difficulties understanding language, is weaker. But several studies have shown that with direct intervention from an SLP, they too can make good progress with a range of targets, including vocabulary and word finding, comprehension and production of grammar. These children, in particular, benefit from the specialist skills of an SLP.

Is Intervention Effective for Teenagers with DLD?

Children continue to learn throughout their teenage years and there is evidence that demonstrates that they continue to benefit from intervention. Unfortunately, no intervention studies have been carried out with adults with DLD and intervention for this group is rarely available. However, it is likely that they too could benefit from focused intervention targeted at specific problems that are affecting their lives.

The focus and nature of intervention is likely to be very different for children of different ages and indeed teenagers and adults. Interventionists must consider not just the person's difficulties, but also the potential to make a difference to their functioning and well-being. Thus, the targets of intervention for a young adult may well be on areas necessary for accessing the world of work, whereas for younger children it may be on communicating basic needs.

Overall, evidence suggests that intervention with trained individuals, working with a knowledgeable expert like a speech-language pathologist, can help individuals with DLD achieve more effective language and communication skills. Individuals with DLD and their family members are encouraged to seek intervention.

References:

1. Calder, S. D., Claessen, M., Ebbels, S., & Leitão, S. (2020). Explicit Grammar Intervention in Young School-Aged Children With Developmental Language Disorder: An Efficacy Study Using Single-Case Experimental Design. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 51(2), 298-316. doi:doi:10.1044/2019_LSHSS-19-00060.

2. Campbell, L., Nicoll, H., & Ebbels, S. H. (2019). The effectiveness of semantic intervention for word-finding difficulties in college-aged students (16-19 years) with persistent Language Disorder. Autism & Developmental Language Impairments, 4, 2396941519870784. doi:10.1177/2396941519870784.

3. Ebbels, S., Nicoll, H., Clark, B., Eachus, B., Gallagher, A. L., Horniman, K., . . . Turner, G. (2012). Effectiveness of semantic therapy for word-finding difficulties in pupils with persistent language impairments: a randomized control trial. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 47(1), 35-51. doi:10.1111/j.1460-6984.2011.00073.x.

4. Ebbels, S. H. (2014). Effectiveness of intervention for grammar in school-aged children with primary language impairments: A review of the evidence. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 30(1), 7-40.

5. Ebbels, S. H., Maric, N., Murphy, A., & Turner, G. (2014). Improving comprehension in adolescents with severe receptive language impairments: a randomised control trial of intervention for coordinating conjunctions. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders (Vol. 49, pp. 30-48). (Reprinted from: In File).

6. Ebbels, S. H., van der Lely, H. K. J., & Dockrell, J. E. (2007). Intervention for verb argument structure in children with persistent SLI: a randomized control trial. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 50, 1330-1349.

7. Ebbels, S. H., Wright, L., Brockbank, S., Godfrey, C., Harris, C., Leniston, H., . . . Marić, N. (2017). Effectiveness of 1:1 speech and language therapy for older children with (developmental) language disorder. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders. doi:10.1111/1460-6984.12297.

8. Gallagher, A., & Chiat, S. (2009). Evaluation of speech and language therapy interventions for pre-school children with specific language impairment: a comparison of outcomes following specialist intensive, nursery-based and no intervention. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 44(5), 616-638.

9. Law, J., Garrett, Z., & Nye, N. (2003). Speech and Language Therapy Interventions for Children with Primary Speech and Language Delay or Disorder (Cochrane Review). Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Issue 3, Art.No: CD004110. DOI: 004110.001002/14651858.

10. Lowe, H., Henry, L., Müller, L. M., & Joffe, V. L. (2018). Vocabulary intervention for adolescents with language disorder: a systematic review. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 53(2), 199-217. doi:doi:10.1111/1460-6984.12355.

11. Wales, D., Skinner, L., & Hayman, M. (2017). The Efficacy of Telehealth-Delivered Speech and Language Intervention for Primary School-Age Children: A Systematic Review. International Journal of Telerehabilitation, 9(1), 55-70. doi:10.5195/ijt.2017.6219.

12. Wright, L., Pring, T., & Ebbels, S. (2018). Effectiveness of vocabulary intervention for older children with (developmental) language disorder. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 53(3), 480-494. doi:doi:10.1111/1460-6984.12361.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Individualized Intervention for Children with DLD

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Susan Ebbels, Ph.D. Director, Moor House Research and Training Institute Language and communication skills are vital in our personal, social and work lives in a highly verbal world. All children deserve access to an education that promotes good spoken and written communication skills. Children with DLD may require additional support in these areas.

# data[].attributes.headline
Don't be scared to ask for help - a parent's advice

# data[].attributes.subject
Don't be scared to ask for help - a parent's advice

# data[].attributes.body
Short article with link to a podcast with Jackie, a parent of a student at Moor House School and College

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Parents should follow their instincts and not be afraid to ask for help according to Moor House parent Jackie Thurtle, who offers a parents' perspective on Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) in the latest Moor House Podcast.

Speaking ahead of DLD Awareness Day this Friday (16 th October) Jackie, whose son Joseph, 17, has been at Moor House since the age of 8, spoke candidly about her experiences including how it felt to receive the diagnosis, the challenges faced along the way and what advice she would offer other parents.

"We didn't really appreciate what was before us" she says, reflecting on Joseph's frustrations with speech at an early age.

"We really had no idea what DLD was. He started to have seizures around the age of 4 which turned out to be a silver lining as that needed investigation and through that, we discovered a Speech and Language Disorder.

"As a parent I don't think any diagnosis is particularly welcomed. It wasn't easy emotionally, but we had a very helpful GP who referred us to Evelina Hospital where we met a fantastic multi-disciplinary team.

"The best advice we were given was by a Speech & Language Therapist at Evelina, an awesome man who we respected enormously. He asked if we'd ever heard of Moor House? That was a wonderful piece of information."

On her advice to other parents Jackie says: "Take every piece of help that's offered. The help is for your child and it's no reflection on you.

"I think the other thing to bear in mind is that it's not their fault and don't apologise for them.

"There are situations I've found myself in public where I've wept because he hasn't been accepted.

"People will be understanding if they can be, other won't. I don't apologise for anything he does because he is him and I've accepted that. Keep their spirits and sense of worth at the forefront of what you do.

"Reserve your strength, there will be lots of battles, but keep loving and holding each other. A lot of my friends ask me 'how have you got a child who wants to cuddle you still'. Not many 17 year-olds want their Mum but he does, so that's a huge silver lining for me."
You can listen to the full interview with Jackie on the latest Moor House Podcast, available below.
You have not allowed cookies and this content may contain cookies.

If you would like to view this content please Allow Cookies

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Don't be scared to ask for help: A parents view on DLD

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Parents should follow their instincts and not be afraid to ask for help according to Moor House parent Jackie Thurtle, who offers a parents' perspective on Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) in the latest Moor House Podcast.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In every Australian classroom, two children are likely to have developmental language disorder (DLD). October 16 marks International Developmental Language Disorder Awareness Day, which recognises the vital importance of language for social and emotional development and the people affected by DLD.

What is developmental language disorder?

Developmental language disorder is a life-long condition affecting language development that is characterised by difficulties with understanding and/or using spoken language that cannot be explained by another known health condition.

This neurodevelopmental condition used to be called 'specific language impairment (SLI)'. However, the name was changed in 2017 after a group of international experts reached an agreement about how to identify childhood language impairments.

The term 'language disorder' was chosen for referring to language difficulties that impact a child's ability to communicate, learn and participate in daily life. DLD is a subset of this group of disorders.

Children with DLD can have difficulty understanding what people are saying to them, and with expressing their needs, thoughts and feelings through spoken language.

The cause of DLD is not known, although it is probably linked to interacting genetic and environmental factors rather than having a single cause.

How common is DLD?

The exact incidence of DLD isn't known. However, recent research shows that, on average, two students in every class of 30 (or about 7.5 percent) will be affected by DLD at a level severe enough to affect their academic progress.

Could my child have DLD?

Your child may be diagnosed with DLD if they have difficulty with talking and/or understanding language that impacts everyday life, such as their ability to communicate with family and peers or participate in home and community life.

Children with DLD have language issues that persist past the developmentally appropriate age. These include:

Incorrect grammar - such as saying 'he runned' instead of 'he ran'.

Having a limited vocabulary - children with DLD may use fewer words than their peers and take longer to learn new words.

Difficulty understanding instructions and stories in the classroom and peers in social settings.

Trouble using language in social situations - such as difficulty taking turns in a conversation or finding the right words to express their ideas and feelings.

Difficulties using correct speech sounds - such as saying 'lellow' for 'yellow'.

Because learning mainly happens through language, DLD can also impact your child's schooling and ability to fulfil their academic potential.

According to the Queensland University of Technology's Student Engagement, Learning and Behaviour Research Group, students with DLD often have difficulty:

using complete or complex sentences

linking their ideas and creating cohesive texts

retelling a story or event

finding the word they want to say or write to explain something

learning new words in various subject areas

spelling and reading, and

engaging in social interactions.

DLD can also lead to social isolation because it can be harder for your child to participate in conversations and activities with their peers. This may also make your child more vulnerable to bullying.

A DLD diagnosis may be missed as it can sometimes be misinterpreted as poor behaviour or inattention. Because they want so much to fit in at school, students may actively mask their language difficulties. For example, they may display behaviours such as disruption and disengagement to draw attention away from their language issues.

As a lifelong condition, DLD also affects adults and may be linked with unemployment and economic disadvantage.

How is DLD diagnosed?

A diagnosis of DLD will involve an assessment with a speech-language pathologist, such as our experienced therapists here at Growing Early Minds. Other professionals, such as your child's GP, paediatrician and educators, may also be involved.

The diagnosis will include ruling out other potential causes for your child's language difficulties, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), sensory-neural hearing loss or a genetic condition such as Down syndrome.

For a diagnosis of DLD to be made, your child must have significant language deficits relative to expectations for their age, which cause problems with communication or learning in everyday life and are unlikely to resolve by age five.

How is DLD managed?

While there is no cure, support is available to help children with DLD develop skills and strategies to achieve their potential.

Your speech-language pathologist will conduct an assessment which includes taking a history of your child's development and noting any health concerns. They will explore your child's communication skills, looking for strengths as well as challenges. Consideration will be made of your family situation and you and your child's goals.

Next, in consultation with you, your speech-language pathologist will create a plan for achieving those goals.

This will include a tailored speech therapy program, along with strategies to build your capacity to support your child's language development. If your child is at school, it may also include working with teachers on strategies to support your child in the classroom.

Your speech-language pathologist will monitor your child's progress and adjust the program as needed to suit changing goals and developmental stages.
Our dedicated speech-language pathologists at Growing Early Minds are all certified practising members of Find out more on our speech language pathology page, get in touch on 1800 436 436 or message us at support@growingearlyminds.org.au. Speech Pathology Australia. They are experienced in working with children who have complex needs, developmental delay or disability (including autism) and who have experienced trauma.
References

1. https://research.qut.edu.au/selb/explainer-what-is-developmental-language-disorder/

2. https://www.rcslt.org/speech-and-language-therapy/clinical-information/developmental-language-disorder#

3. https://www.mcri.edu.au/sites/default/files/media/documents/cres/cre-cl_policy_brief_2_dld_public_health.pdf

4. https://www.sydney.edu.au/medicine-health/news-and-events/2019/10/17/raising-awareness-of-developmental-language-disorders.html

5. https://ahha.asn.au/system/files/docs/publications/evidence_brief_no_20._developmental_language_disorder.pdf

6. https://www.acamh.org/topic/developmental-language-disorder/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Developmental Language Disorder | Growing Early Minds

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In every Australian classroom, two children are likely to have developmental language disorder (DLD). October 16 marks International Developmental Language Disorder Awareness Day, which recognises the vital importance of language for social and emotional development and the people affected by DLD.

# data[].attributes.body
An animated video from Dorset Health

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust

# data[].attributes.body
64 page evidence based guide for parents affected by DLD - thanks to Banter Speech

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Developmental Language Disorder: A free guide for families

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Developmental Language Disorder ('DLD') is common. But it is not well understood. It's hard to find evidence-based information that is easy to read. We've written a lot about DLD. We put together this 64-article guide for children, adolescents, adults and families affected by DLD.

# data[].attributes.body
An animated narration of Jen's experience with DLD.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Raising Awareness of Developmental Language Disorder #DLDSEEME 2020

# data[].attributes.body
Raising Awareness of Developmental Language Disorder

# data[].attributes.body
Adolescent Discourse Protocol developed by Lizz Hill downloadable from:
https://www.languageandliteracyinyoungpeople.com/apps-resources

# data[].attributes.headline
Mental Health in adolescents with history of DLD

# data[].attributes.subject
Mental Health in adolescents with history of DLD

# data[].attributes.body
Open access article In ADLI
Tina Kilpatrick with Suze Leitao & Mark Boyes

Mental health in adolescents with a history of developmental language disorder: The moderating effect of bullying victimisation https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2396941519893313

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In this episode, we talk about common adjustments teachers make in the classroom to support students with developmental language disorder, or DLD. A neurodevelopmental condition, DLD affects both language expression (talking and writing) and language comprehension (listening and reading).

# data[].attributes.body
@TheDLDProject_

# data[].attributes.body
@thinkforwardedu

# data[].attributes.headline
Free video: DLD - What every class teacher needs to know

# data[].attributes.subject
Free video: DLD - What every class teacher needs to know

# data[].attributes.body
Moor House School and College: Research and Training

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Welcome to our introduction to Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) - What every class teacher needs to know training with Sue Marr, Specialist Teacher (SLCN) and Moor House Research and Training Institute Trainer.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
DLD - What every class teacher needs to know!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Welcome to our introduction to Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) - What every class teacher needs to know training with Sue Marr, Specialist Teacher (SLCN) and Moor House Research and Training Institute Trainer.

# data[].attributes.body
Evidence based practices for the school-based SLP

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This site was developed for school-based Speech Language Pathologists (and teachers) to provide resources on reading and writing intervention, and to promote collaboration regarding students with Developmental Language Disorder in the classroom.
​To read more about us, click the link below.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This site was developed for school-based Speech Language Pathologists (and teachers) to provide resources on reading and writing intervention, and to promote collaboration regarding students with Developmental Language Disorder in the classroom. ​To read more about us, click the link below.

# data[].attributes.headline
Developmental language disorder podcasts, projects, websites and videos

# data[].attributes.subject
Developmental language disorder podcasts, projects, websites and videos

# data[].attributes.body
University of Western Ontario, Canada

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The goals of this course are (1) to provide sufficient knowledge and basic clinical skills to begin practice in the area of language and related disorders affecting school-age children, and (2) to develop clinical reasoning skills necessary to address the ambiguity characteristic of professional practice in this area. To look at the course syllabus, click here.

Students complete a clinical project as part of this course. Some are in a format that makes it possible to share them here. Enjoy!

You can also visit the LWM lab YouTube channel.

YouTube Video Projects and Podcasts

Alfakir, T. & Breton, K. (2018). What is Bilingualism? (English, French, Arabic)

Lake, M. (2018). Parent Friendly Video about Bilingualism

Rawn, J. (2018). Children with Behavioural Challenges

Wong, M. (2018). Language, Reading, and Math - as different as we think

Bolton, J. (2017). A Checklist for Learning

Dubb, S. (2017). Self-Regulation

Johnson, A. (2017). Links to Literacy - Information Video (1/2) & Links to Literacy - Quick Tip Video (2/2)

O'Connor, R. (2017).Introduction to Reading Comprehension (1/2)&Reading Comprehension Strategies in the Classroom (2/2)

Lovero, C. (2017). Story Time: Making the Most of your Shared Reading Experience

Vollebregt, M. (2017). Teaching Self Advocacy to Children with DLD

PDF Projects

Cushnie-Sparrow, D. (2017). Family-Centred Reporting: Writing Plain Language Reports

Forsyth, K. (2017). Speech and Language Developmental Milestones

Lepore, R. (2017). Selective Mutism: A resource guide for Speech-Language Pathologists, Psychologists, Teachers, and Parents

MacNeill, C. (2017). Writing Simplified Reports

Mercier, M. (2017). A Resource and Informational Toolkit for Speech-Language Pathologists Working with Bilingual Children

Melick, N. (2017). The SLP's Quick Guide to Dynamic Assessment for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD) Children

Zeh, N. (2017). Teaching Morphology to Improve Literacy: A Guide for Teachers

Hall, C. (2016). A Resource Toolkit for Speech-Language Pathologists Working With Children from Indigenous Communities

Leroux, K. (2016). Ontario Language Arts Curriculum- Grade 2 Linking Curriculum with Assessment & Intervention Strategies/Recommendations

Smith, S. (2016). Expository Text in the Classroom: Evidence-based strategies to facilitate students' understanding of informational texts

Twitter Chats

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The goals of this course are (1) to provide sufficient knowledge and basic clinical skills to begin practice in the area of language and related disorders affecting school-age children, and (2) to develop clinical reasoning skills necessary to address the ambiguity characteristic of professional practice in this area.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why is language important for mental health?

# data[].attributes.body
For educators and other professionals - The Centre for Inclusive Education, QUT

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This guide is designed to help educators and other professionals uphold the obligation to consult students with disability, and to provide accessible consultation processes.
Download Student Consultation Practice Guide (PDF file, 3MB)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Practice Guides - The Centre for Inclusive Education

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This guide is designed to help educators and other professionals uphold the obligation to consult students with disability, and to provide accessible consultation processes. Download Student Consultation Practice Guide (PDF file, 3MB)

# data[].attributes.body
An overview of research by Kevin Durkin into students' engagement with interactive media

# data[].attributes.headline
General tips for supporting secondary school students with learning needs

# data[].attributes.subject
General tips for supporting secondary school students with learning needs

# data[].attributes.body
Simple infographic with useful tips for teachers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Supporting students with learning needs SS

# data[].attributes.headline
Here are some of the great people to follow on Twitter #DevLangDis

# data[].attributes.subject
Here are some of the great people to follow on Twitter #DevLangDis

# data[].attributes.body
Dorothy Bishop @deevybee
Courtney Norbury @lilaccourt
Susan Ebbels @SusanEbbels
Pamela Snow @PamelaSnow2
Tanya Serry @tserry2504
Stephen Parsons @WordAware
Julia Starling @JuliaStarling4
Natalie Munro @NatalieMunro3
Nathaniel Swain @NathanielRSwain
Lisa Archibald @larchiba6
Susan Rvachew @ProfRvach
Emina McLean @EminaMcLean
Becky Clarke @BeckyClark22
Haley Tancredi @HaleyTanc
Suze Leitao @Suze_Freogirl
Robert Wells @RobertPWells
Charlotte Forwood @talkinged19
Emily May Jackson @EmilyMayJackson
David Kinnane @speechbloke
Kathryn Thorburn @Lang_LearnSP
Karla McGregor @mcgregor_karla
Emily Dawes @EmilyDawesSLP
Laura Glisson @LauraGlisson
Shaun Ziegenfusz @ShaunZiegenfusz
Victoria Joffe @vjoffe
Billie Lowe @HilaryLowe2
Josephine Wallinger @jowallinger
Patricia Eadie @paeadie
Tim Kittel@TimothyKittel
Tiffany Hogan @tiffanyphogan
Lizz Hill @LizzHillSP
Tina Kilpatrick @tinakilpatrick1

# data[].attributes.headline
Previous International DLD Awareness Days

# data[].attributes.subject
Previous International DLD Awareness Days

# data[].attributes.body
The first International DLD Awareness Day was held in 2017 and has grown rapidly. In 2019 iconic landmarks around the world, including the Niagra Falls, Brighton Pier and the Bolte Bridge were lit in purple to illuminate DLD, an invisible disorder.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
2019 - 'DLD - You and me'

In 2019 we focused on telling your stories. People with DLD, families and professionals submitted stories and videos to our website, which were then shared on social media. We also focused on translating our DLD Fact Sheet in different languages with the support of volunteer translators from around the world. This year also saw the first "Light Up Events" with landmarks lighting up purple and yellow.

2018 - 'abc's of dld'

In 2018 it's time to see if you know your 'ABCs of DLD'. You're encouraged to ASSESS your understanding, BUILD your knowledge and CREATE awareness of DLD. We are aiming to be bigger and better this year by launching www.radld.org. We want everyone to know about DLD to use consistent terminology. This will enable greater public awareness, research and advocacy for those who are affected.

2017 - 'DLD 1-2-3'

In 2017 we launched the first DLD Awareness Day with the theme 'DLD 1-2-3'. This included an information sheet and quick quiz, as well as our award winning Youtube video.

Stay up to date

Get the latest updates from the RADLD team straight to your inbox.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 2019 we focused on telling your stories. People with DLD, families and professionals submitted stories and videos to our website, which were then shared on social media. We also focused on translating our DLD Fact Sheet in different languages with the support of volunteer translators from around the world.

# data[].attributes.body
This year International DLD Awareness Day is on Friday 16 October. Explore some of the ways to get involved.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
SAVE THE DATE | #DLDDAY 2024

FRIDAY 18 OCTOBER 2024

Developmental Language Disorder is a hidden but common disability that affects 1 in 14 people causing difficulties understanding and using language for no known reason. The 2024 DLDday theme is 'Speak up for DLD'.

Please contact the RADLD team at hello@radld.org to discuss opportunities to collaborate on DLDday awareness raising initiatives.

#DLDday History

The new terminology of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) was launched in 2017 and our first DLD Awareness Day quickly followed. Each year is becoming bigger and better thanks to the support of people from all around the world.

Developmental Language Disorder Day (#DLDday), now in its seventh year, is celebrated annually around the world with more than 40 countries involved. In 2023, over 80 landmarks from around the world lit up in purple and yellow on or around #DLDday.

Explore the menu below to learn how you can help raise awareness for people with Developmental Language Disorder.

future dld days

2025 - Friday 17 October

2026 - Friday 16 October

2027 - Friday 15 October

2028 - Friday 20 October

The 2024 #DLDday 'Speak Up for DLD' campaign materials are currently in development. Watch this space! However, please scroll down this page to see our other resources to support your awareness raising efforts all year round. Thank you! GET YOUR BAKE ON FOR #DLDDAY Get your Bake on for...

read more

Light up the world purple and yellow! Light up events involve key landmarks in a town or city, which are regularly lit up in different colours for special occasions. If you know of a landmark that does light up for causes, please consider submitting an application and notifying us at...

read more

Share what you've learned about DLD and help create awareness on social media.

read more

Stay up to date

Get the latest updates from the RADLD team straight to your inbox.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
SAVE THE DATE | #DLDDAY 2024 FRIDAY 18 OCTOBER 2024 Developmental Language Disorder is a hidden but common disability that affects 1 in 14 people causing difficulties understanding and using language for no known reason. The 2024 DLDday theme is 'Speak up for DLD'. Please contact the RADLD team at...

# data[].attributes.headline
What is Developmental Language Disorder? Overview and useful strategies

# data[].attributes.subject
What is Developmental Language Disorder? Overview and useful strategies

# data[].attributes.body
Linda Graham, Haley Tancredi & Jaedene Glasby - Queensland University of Technology

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Student Engagement, Learning and Behaviour (#SELB) Research Group

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is one of the most common disabilities affecting learning but most teachers have never heard of it. Help us spread the word on October 19: DLD Awareness Day.
Students may experience language difficulties for a range of reasons. For around two students in every classroom, it is likely that their language difficulties are a result of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). However, DLD is often under-identified and poorly understood. DLD constitutes a disability under the Disability Discrimination Act and educators are obliged to make reasonable adjustments to curriculum, pedagogy and assessment to ensure that students with DLD can access their education and demonstrate their learning. In this post, M.Phil candidates Haley Tancredi and Jaedene Glasby, and Professor Linda Graham explain what DLD is, which characteristics to look for, and how teachers can support students with language difficulties, including those with DLD. Teacher awareness of DLD and its educational impacts is critical if they are to fulfill these obligations.
What is DLD?

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by persistent language difficulties that cannot be explained by another diagnosis and which exist despite adequate language-learning opportunities. DLD affects both language expression (talking and writing), as well as language comprehension (listening and reading comprehension), though one area may be more impacted than another.

The term "Developmental Language Disorder" has only recently emerged. Until last year, there were a number of terms used and various diagnostic criteria adopted when describing childhood language impairments. A common term was "Specific Language Impairment" or the acronym "SLI". To confuse things further, in some Australian states, a targeted funding category called "Speech-Language Impairment" exists (also using the acronym SLI). However, not all students with language disorders will qualify for school-based targeted funding in the SLI category due to restrictive eligibility thresholds.

After an international agreement that consensus was needed, a group of 57 experts reached consensus on how to identify childhood impairments in language. In 2017, agreement was reached regarding the term 'Language Disorder' to refer to children with language difficulties that impact their ability to communicate, learn and participate in everyday life. DLD is a subset within this group of language disorders.

Given that language is integral to all aspects of the human condition, it is likely that DLD will impact a student's emotional, social, educational and vocational outcomes if they do not receive appropriate support and reasonable adjustments. Even mild language difficulties can have significant impacts on learning. Left unaddressed, these impacts can have a profound effect on a student's life potentially leading to early school leaving, difficulty participating in the workforce, unemployment and/or engagement with the juvenile justice system.

Indicators of DLD in the classroom

Humans are socially primed to communicate with one another. Often, teachers will "fill in the blanks" when a student finds language difficult by asking the right questions, offering words to complete their sentences, and giving the student time to create their response. Often these valuable supports are provided by teachers without conscious awareness that they are doing it or why they might need to.
Students with DLD often experience difficulty:
As students with DLD typically want to "fit in" at school, many actively mask their difficulties. Students may engage in externalising behaviours to redirect attention from the difficulties that they are experiencing. This may mean that surface level behaviours, such as disengagement or disruption receive the most attention, while the underlying cause of the behaviour (which may be DLD) is often overlooked.

using complete or complex sentences

linking their ideas and creating cohesive texts

retelling a story or event

finding the word they want to say or write to explain something

learning new words in various subject areas

spelling and reading, and

engaging in social interactions.

Certain school tasks may put pressure on a student's language system, revealing their difficulties with language. In the early years, early literacy difficulties that persist into the middle primary school years may signal broader language difficulties, particularly in the transition from "learning to read" to "reading to learn". Older students may regularly misinterpret things that they read or not understand what is required of them in assessment tasks.

Teachers may also observe that although a student appears to understand classroom content, this understanding is not reflected in the student's written work. Even with feedback, this group of students may be unable to improve their texts. Written language tasks leave students "nowhere to hide" their language difficulties and persistent vocabulary, syntactic, text cohesion and macro-structure difficulties in written language is a red flag for possible DLD.

DLD is a lifelong condition and while targeted interventions and speech-language pathology support is important, teachers have a critical role in identifying and addressing language-based barriers within the school environment. Without adjustment, language-based barriers may impact a student with DLD's ability to access the curriculum, as well as their ability to engage in teacher's pedagogical practices and take advantage of opportunities to demonstrate their learning.

Supporting students with language difficulties in inclusive classrooms

Many of the pedagogical practices that teachers can adopt to reduce or remove barriers in the school environment for students with DLD are simple, cost effective and likely to benefit many students. It is the art of implementing most of the strategies, all of the time, that is critical.

Research has demonstrated that when teachers modify their instructional language, there are positive outcomes for students and teachers alike. Deliberate and conscious moderation of language demand, both in instructional language and in written materials, as well as awareness of students' language comprehension, is key.

Teachers can reduce language barriers and enhance the language access of all students by:

Using short, simple sentences, particularly when introducing new or complex information

Providing short units of explanation interspersed with time for students to think/interpret what has been said

Allowing students to work in pairs to put information into their own words or summarise information into one key idea

Avoiding non-literal or abstract language where possible, as unexplained sarcasm and metaphorical language can be confusing

Using visual aids, demonstrations or artefacts/real objects to support the ideas or concepts being taught

Moderating or slowing speaking rates and getting feedback from teaching peers, students or a speech pathologist to assist

Giving instructions in the order of their required completion

Repeating instructions and information, using the same words where possible

Using intentional gesture or action to enhance meaning

Providing frequent verbal summaries to review what has been said

DLD Awareness Day

To help raise awareness of DLD and the impact of language difficulties, the 19 th of October 2018 is DLD Awareness Day. The theme of this year's DLD awareness day is the "ABC's of DLD".

A stands for ASSESS your understanding of DLD, which you can do by completing this quiz.

B stands for BUILD knowledge - the Raising Awareness of Developmental Language Disorder (RADLD) website offers a range of resources that have been shared by researchers, clinicians and teachers from around the world.

C stands for CREATE awareness, which you can do by sharing this post to educate the community about DLD.

The RADLD website, YouTube channel, Twitter handle and Facebook pages are great places to learn more about DLD.

If you are looking to do just one thing today to help others learn about DLD, watch the DLD 1-2-3 video and share it on social media or with a colleague or friend.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
explainer: what is developmental language disorder?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
developmental language disorder (dld) is one of the most common disabilities affecting learning but most teachersâ have never heardâ of it.â help us spread the word on october 19: dld awareness day.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Explainer: What is Developmental Language Disorder? - Student Engagement, Learning and Behaviour (#SELB) Research Group

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is one of the most common disabilities affecting learning but most teachers have never heard of it. Help us spread...

# data[].attributes.headline
Designing out barriers to student access and participation in secondary school assessment

# data[].attributes.subject
Designing out barriers to student access and participation in secondary school assessment

# data[].attributes.body
Linda Graham, Haley Tancredi, Jill Willis & Kelli McGraw

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Abstract

In an effort to support student agency in assessment, teachers seek to provide detailed instructions and advice in associated assessment task sheets. In this paper, we analyse a sample English assessment task to consider how such assessment design practices might inadvertently create barriers to access and participation. To make our case, we highlight the learning characteristics of students in two of the most prevalent disability groups: students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and students with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). The paper links student agency to the problem of equity by analysing the conditions and criteria of access that are built into assessment design. The article concludes with design recommendations to help improve access for all students, including students in these two highly prevalent disability groups.

Introduction

Assessment task sheets are invitations to create performances that will be judged or assessed by others. By being aware of the criteria against which they will be judged, teachers hope students will grow their capacity for self-assessment and active participation. This capacity to evaluate options in order to make choices and have greater personal control over quality outcomes is at the heart of the definition of student agency (Bandura 2006). It is well established that students develop their understanding of quality and their ability to make choices in assessment by drawing from descriptions of shared criteria and standards, alongside social support such as discussion and multiple exemplars, to ensure their assessment responses amount to more than criteria compliance (Sadler 1987; Torrance 2017). Ideally, assessment task sheets are structural resources that help students engage in practical evaluative judgments as they check their developing work against the specifications, while drawing on habits developed over time and their creative imagination. These are practices that reflect Emirbayer and Mische's ( 1998) threefold definition of human agency. In practice, however, assessment task sheets also serve multiple purposes for teachers, such as providing evidence of complying with the requirements of a syllabus as part of teacher quality assurance processes, and to help justify assessment decisions to students and parents. These multiple purposes can add to the complexity of task sheet designs, which can then present barriers for students to access and understand the task requirements, so that they can actively participate in the assessment. Even though teachers may attempt to support student agency by demystifying some of the 'secret teacher business' of assessment by giving detailed instructions and information in the task sheet, we contend that overly detailed instructions can complicate tasks and create additional barriers for students with disability. Student agency is therefore inextricably linked to accessibility and conceptions of equity.

Equity in summative assessment is a concept that is experiencing radical and rapid change. Where once altering any part of the assessment for any student would be seen as a threat to the reliability of the instrument, teachers are now required to adjust conditions to enable all students to participate in the same task. However, retrospective adjustments can be time-consuming and therefore are typically only made for a small number of students with severe disabilities. As assessment specialists increasingly recognise that consequential validity applies to a much wider range of students, the new challenge for teachers is to design inclusive assessment tasks from the outset (Thurlow and Kopriva 2015; Rajagopalan and Gordon 2016).

Inclusive assessment is a move away from discourses of assessment that originated in the early part of the 20th century and which served an historical function of selection for high status occupations, where the failure of a percentage of students was essential for ranking and sorting purposes (Gipps 1999). Instead of operating as a technology of exclusion, assessment is now expected to operate as a technology of inclusion, where all students have an opportunity to learn and to demonstrate what they have learned (Torrance 2017; Moss et al. 2008). Inclusive assessment designs have contributed alternative approaches for teachers, such as narrative assessment (Bourke and Mentis 2013; Morton et al. 2012) and Universal Design for Learning where greater choice for students in assessment modes is associated with increased agency (Rose and Meyer 2002; Van Haren 2010).

Despite recent advances, the underpinning values from a century ago remain deeply embedded in most classroom assessment traditions (Shepard 2000). Revisiting these dilemmas through the analysis of contemporary assessment task sheets is an opportunity to bring some of those underpinning values to the surface to critically evaluate how assessment task sheets can better support students as active agents who can confidently use the conditions of assessment to shape their assessment performance.

Agency and equity depend on access

When considering the concept of equal educational opportunity almost four decades ago, Burbules et al. ( 1982) drew on Aristotelean principles of equity and fairness to re-define equal educational opportunity as "access", which they then split into two domains. These two domains were

1. (i)
Conditions of access or external/environmental factors (in this case, an assessment task sheet), and

2. (ii)
Criteria of access or the personal factors (e.g. traits, skills and abilities) necessary to complete the task.

While these may appear to represent a dichotomy between structure/environment and agency/personal capacity, conditions and criteria of access are integrated and mutually informing concepts. Critically, as Burbules et al. ( 1982) emphasise in the excerpt below, the conditions of access dictate the necessary criteria of access.

Imagine that a book in an elementary school library is on a shelf 6-feet above the ground (with no ladders or other assistance available). In order to have an opportunity to read the book, a student must have access to the book. The fact that the book is on a shelf so high is a 'condition of access'; it is an environmental and external factor. This condition of access determines that a necessary 'criterion of access' to the book is the ability to reach a height of 6-feet; a child 4-feet tall would not (without assistance) have access to the book, hence would have no opportunity to read it. The criteria of access in this case, height or jumping ability, are personal factors, but they are not internal; they are criteria of access precisely because of certain external conditions (Burbules et al. 1982, p. 175, our emphasis).

Problems arise in the realm of assessment when the external conditions create criteria that make access more difficult for some individuals, unfairly disadvantaging them in the process. Students with a disability are those most likely to experience disadvantage in assessment, especially students with so-called "mild" disabilities, such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), who are predominantly educated in mainstream schools and seldom receive adjustments (Mulholland 2017; Marshall et al. 2002). Students with a diagnosis of ADHD or DLD qualify as having a disability under Australian anti-discrimination legislation, which requires education providers to provide reasonable adjustments to ensure that people with disability can access and participate in education on the same basis as everyone else. The term 'on the same basis', however, is misleading and can be misinterpreted to mean students with disability must complete the same (unadjusted) assessment. This misinterpretation is compounded by the misperception that reasonable adjustments unfairly confer advantage on students with disability (Dickson 2011).1 This, however, is where the concept of relevance becomes important and it is one that Burbules et al. (1982) emphasise in their consideration of equity.

Determining relevance

Most people intuitively understand that holding an examination in a second-storey assessment hall to which there is only stairway access discriminates against wheelchair users. Drawing on Burbules et al.'s ( 1982) concept of equity, the condition of access in this case is the stairs and the criterion they impose is the ability to walk. The key issue here is whether that is fair and the most important consideration in determining fairness is whether the criterion being imposed is relevant to the core objective of the assessment. Ensuring access to the examination hall for wheelchair users via a lift, for example, is an uncontroversial adjustment and no one would argue that this unfairly advantages the student with disability or that it disadvantages the majority without. However, there remains significant resistance to the provision of adjustments to students with cognitive or language disabilities because of enduring beliefs that these adjustments make the assessment "easier", advantaging students with disability in the process (Poed 2016).

In the case of accessible assessment task sheets, such an advantage would only be true if the benefit was not universal and if students' ability to navigate and interpret the task sheet was the core purpose of the assessment. This is what is meant by the first- and second-order purposes of assessment and this is a useful distinction to apply when considering relevance because the first-order purposes of an assessment task that relate to the core concepts being assessed can easily be overwhelmed by second-order priorities (Cumming and Maxwell 1999). If these second-order priorities complicate assessment task sheets to the extent that the task sheet itself creates barriers to student access and participation, then the result is not a true reflection of that student's response to the (first-order) purpose of the assessment and the assessment is therefore both inequitable and invalid. Addressing barriers to ensure all students can access and participate in educational assessment is more than a professional responsibility, and it is supported by anti-discrimination legislation and education policy. However, teachers understanding of their legal obligations can also be a barrier to inclusive assessment design.

Educators' obligations under Australian legislation

In Australia, it is a federally legislated requirement for reasonable adjustment to be made to support all students with disability to access their education on the same basis as students without disability, as described in the Disability Standards for Education (Australian Government 2005). The Standards are informed by the understanding that disability is socially mediated by barriers to access and participation and apply to any student with a disability as described by the Disability Discrimination Act (Australian Government 1992). As the provision of education is a state/territory government responsibility, it is up to each state and territory to interpret the Standards, communicate responsibilities to school staff, and allocate resources to enable the provision of appropriate supports through quality differentiated teaching practice and educational adjustment, as per the processes outlined in the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on Students with Disability (NCCD).

This, however, is where the translation of theory to policy and practice can lead to confusion. A key area of contention is the concept of reasonable adjustment and which students are entitled to it (Poed 2016), followed closely by poor understanding of differentiation and the importance of proactive planning (Graham et al. 2017; Capp 2016). Knowledge of these concepts and the practices to enable them is important for educators to meet their obligations under the Standards, which are not dependent on state or sector-based disability verification procedures or the provision of support funding. Despite this, there remains enduring belief within Australian schools that students must have a 'verified' disability and be in receipt of individually targeted funding to qualify for additional support, even that which should be provided through the first NCCD level of quality differentiated teaching practice (Graham et al. 2017). This thinking sits at odds with the Standards but is influenced by the ways in which education systems have historically determined and distributed resourcing for students with disability (Graham and Jahnukainen 2011).

While the mechanisms differ between education systems across Australia, most students with disability receive support through a hierarchy of responses beginning with differentiated teaching practice and supplementary adjustments, such as extra time in exams. Students considered to have low to moderate support needs are funded through census-based resource allocation methods (Sigafoos et al. 2010), which include a mix of staffing (e.g. learning support teacher allocation) and funding based on school enrolment numbers and school/community need. This general or 'base' funding can be used to fund support programs, teacher release, professional development and the employment of support staff. Schools can also apply for individually targeted funding to support students whose needs cannot be fully met through this base-level resourcing.

To date, individually targeted (per student) funding has been tightly regulated by eligibility criteria that are tied to medical categories and departmental 'verification' of disability (Sigafoos et al. 2010).2 The verification process is highly bureaucratic, labour intensive and administratively expensive. The catch is that there are only a limited number of eligible disability categories and funding is apportioned in accordance with the level and frequency of support required. Queensland's 'Education Adjustment Program' (EAP), for example, provides targeted funding for students who meet specific criteria and who require significant support to access and demonstrate their learning (DET 2015). Within Queensland state schools, there are five eligibility categories: Intellectual Disability (ID), Speech-Language Impairment (SLI), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Physical Impairment (PI), Vision Impairment (VI) or Hearing Impairment (HI).

Categorical resource allocation methods are problematic because linking funding to diagnoses is known to drive diagnosis in eligible categories and to encourage substitution of diagnoses from unfunded to funded categories, e.g. substituting a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Graham 2015a; Skellern et al. 2005). Although education systems in Australia have attempted to blunt the perverse effects of categorical support allocation methods through the increased use of census-based approaches for students considered to have low to moderate support needs (Graham 2016a), and by developing and promoting adjustments-based models such as the NCCD, these programs are poorly communicated by state Departments of Education and are therefore not well understood in schools (Graham 2015a). As we noted earlier, the greatest misconception is that only students who receive individually targeted funding are entitled to reasonable adjustments. A related misconception is that all adjustments require individually targeted funding and a teacher's aide or other staff to provide them (Graham 2015a).

Due to these misconceptions, students with a disability who have not been through the verification process and who do not receive individually targeted funding are vulnerable to not having their learning needs met. In this paper, we focus on two groups that are especially vulnerable: students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and students with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). Students in these groups frequently miss out on support and do not receive adjustments, either because ADHD is not listed in the limited number of state-based categories of disability eligible for individually targeted funding, or because state-based eligibility thresholds capture only a small proportion of the students affected by DLD. For these students, it is critical that teachers plan proactively to address potential barriers to their access and participation, as even subtle barriers can have significant functional impact on their learning opportunities and educational outcomes.

ADHD and DLD

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is defined as a persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that is atypical to other individuals at comparable levels of development and which interferes with functioning in at least two settings (American Psychiatric Association 2013). It is the most frequently diagnosed neurodevelopmental disorder in Australia, representing 26% of the outcome from all referrals to paediatricians (Wright et al. 2009). Of the seven mental disorders assessed by the second Australian Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health, ADHD was the most common with an estimated prevalence of 7.4% (Lawrence et al. 2016). Teachers with 30 students are likely to encounter at least two students with ADHD in their class (Ohan et al. 2008). This number may be much higher if the school is in a disadvantaged community given the higher prevalence of ADHD in low socioeconomic areas (Russell et al. 2016), or if the school streams lower-achieving students and students with disability into separate 'support' classes (Graham 2015b).

The classroom setting represents one of the most challenging environments for students with ADHD (DuPaul and Weyandt 2006). To be successful learners, children are required to concentrate, not be easily distracted or distract others, listen attentively, follow instructions, be organised and prepared, and complete assigned work accurately and in a timely manner (Prosser 2008). However, these everyday tasks place significant demand on neurocognitive functions that are known weaknesses for students with ADHD, including cognitive and interference control, inhibition, working memory, set-shifting, planning, fluency, aggregated executive function, attention and information processing (van Lieshout et al. 2013). Difficulties enacting these cognitive functions manifest in noticeable behaviours. For example, being easily distracted makes it hard to concentrate. Concentration difficulties, in conjunction with working memory limitations, affect listening and reading comprehension, making it difficult to follow complex verbal or written instructions. Not surprisingly, the most common reason for which these students report getting in trouble at school is "not following instructions" and "not doing work" (Graham 2016b).

Although most children with ADHD are of average or above average intelligence, some of the conditions often experienced when engaging in higher-order cognitive tasks-such as dealing with visual and linguistic complexity, distinguishing between important and unimportant information, and prioritising, organising and coordinating-require these students to expend significant effort, time and energy that is incommensurable with that intended by the task. Unnecessary complexity in the way that curriculum, pedagogy and assessment task expectations are communicated presents barriers to students with ADHD with the result being that many give up before they even start. As these students seldom qualify for individually targeted funding (Mulholland 2017), most are reliant on the provision of quality differentiated teaching practices that proactively address potential barriers to these students' access and participation.

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is defined as persistent difficulties in the acquisition and use of language, impacting word and sentence structure, discourse skills, and comprehension and/or production of vocabulary (Bishop, Snowling, Thompson, Greenhalgh, CATALISE consortium 2016). These difficulties are evident in the spoken, written and/or signed language modes (American Psychiatric Association 2013). DLD has been described as one of the most common but poorly identified disabilities of childhood (Whitehouse 2012), with at least 7% of students presenting with DLD at school entry (Tomblin et al. 1997). This translates to around two students in an average sized classroom (Norbury et al. 2016). Most students with DLD have non-verbal cognitive skills within the average range; however, as most higher-order cognitive tasks-such as organising and structuring ideas and converting these to a written text, synthesising key ideas or themes from a written text, or deciphering important from unimportant information-are bound in language, these tasks are extremely difficult for students with DLD.

Clinically significant DLD-that is, DLD with functional impact-is indicated by two or more composite scores on standardised language assessment that are at least 1.25 standard deviations (SD) below the mean (Tomblin et al. 1997). As we noted earlier though, state-based categorical funding models are based on narrow criteria, including standard scores on standardised language assessments. In Queensland, the cut-off for verification is a standard score of 2.0 SD below the mean and, in Victoria, the cut-off is 3.0 SD below. In practice, this means that there may be many students with clinically significant DLD impacting on their ability to access and participate in learning who may not be eligible for individually targeted funding. These verification cut-offs also act as a disincentive for schools to assess for DLD and, as such, there are many students whose language needs have not been identified and who therefore receive no support, even through quality differentiated teaching practice.

As all aspects of curriculum, literacy and interpersonal engagement in the school context are underpinned by language (Ukrainetz and Fresquez 2003), the educational impact of DLD is significant, all pervasive and debilitating (Leonard 2014). Success in the classroom requires children to learn around 2000 new words each year and to map these within their existing language system. They also need to understand, learn and apply new concepts, store and retrieve information, understand and respond to instructions, comprehend written texts, create meaningful and well-structured texts, engage in discussions with others in the classroom, and give their perspective related to classroom content (Nippold 2016). These classroom tasks place significant demand on the linguistic and social language difficulties that are core to DLD, such as learning and using new vocabulary, understanding and appropriately using multiple word meanings and figurative language, using and comprehending morphological structures (for example, to indicate tense, as in walk ing), creating and structuring sentences and longer texts to convey ideas, and adjusting the communicative tone or style used to suit the audience or task (Leonard 2014). Considering potential language barriers and working to minimise these will thus facilitate participation for all students, but is essential for students with DLD to enable them to participate in and demonstrate their learning.

Analysis of a sample assessment task

While many teachers adjust classroom teaching to support students who experience difficulties in learning, including those with ADHD and DLD, adjustments are less common when it comes to assessment, especially in the secondary years of school (Cumming et al. 2013). This concern prompted a research project that investigated how secondary school English teachers design assessment to support student agency and equity (Willis et al. 2016). Analysis of the sample task sheet featured in this paper enabled the research team to engage in a process of collaborative assessment re-design with Senior English teachers from two schools participating in the project. Written permission to use the de-identified task sheet featuring in the following analysis was provided by the English Head of Department from "Happy Days High School". It is acknowledged that the task was designed to be helpful and engaging for students. The analysis focuses on the way that the task is communicated to students, as this level of detailed instruction is typical for contemporary assessment task sheets.

In this paper, we use a multi-layer approach to analyse the sample assessment task from "Happy Days High School" to question whether some of the practices teachers use to support student agency may inadvertently affect access and therefore equity. For example, in the first layer of analysis, we consider how the provision of "helpful" information might contribute to visual complexity, making it harder for students to distinguish between important and unimportant information. In the second layer, we examine procedural complexity, as in the number of elements that students are required to incorporate to meet the assessment criteria, and consider how poor alignment between these elements may make the task more difficult than it needs to be. In the third layer, we review linguistic complexity, or the language that is being used in the task sheet, and contemplate the barriers that this language may create.

Layer 1: visual complexity

The sample Year 8 task sheet is two pages in length, totalling 1,110 words. The first page has 45 text boxes either holding information related to the task or providing spaces that require the student's name, class and classroom teacher's name (see Fig. 1). The top third of the first page includes information that is both important (e.g. conditions, dates due) and unimportant (e.g. Item 'S2') for students. The salience of some of the information provided (e.g. text type, mode) is unclear, without knowing the emphasis placed on explicitly teaching these in class. The text is left-justified with the use of five different font sizes (9, 10, 11, 12 and 14 point), plus bold lettering and bullet points for emphasis.

Year 8 English assessment task sheet (p. 1)

The middle third of the page includes a long and densely written paragraph on context (e.g. what students have been doing in the unit of study leading up to this summative assessment), and a central text box outlining the student's role, the assessment task and the aim of the assessment. This box is heavily outlined and the 'task' sentence at the centre is bolded and underlined, presumably to draw students' attention to these aspects of the task sheet, indicating core requirements of the task. Unlike the previous section, the text is centre-justified with the use of another five different font sizes (10, 11, 12, 14 and 21 point), plus italic and bold lettering for emphasis.

The bottom third of the page contains a large amount of additional information presented with no consistent style. There are three main text box sections. The first includes information on task length, purpose and audience, as well as information relating to the language features (e.g. point of view, tense, field, tenor, mode and tone) relevant to the task. The second box contains information regarding 'Common Curriculum Elements'; however, this information is highly technical and of questionable relevance to students. The final box contains a statement of the student's contribution and spaces for students to sign and date to verify their authorship. Despite the requirement for students to cite any assistance received, there is no room to do so. The text ranges from centre-justified to left-justified with the use of another five different font sizes (8, 9, 10, 11 and 16 point), plus the use of bold lettering and underline for emphasis.

The second page of the assessment task sheet has 25 text boxes presenting a range of performance examples corresponding to A-E grades across two modes: receptive and productive. Although neatly set out, there is an abundance of text in 9-point Arial Narrow font with large, heavily indented bullet points further crowding the text. The formal reference framing the standard descriptors is that 'the student work has the following characteristics' indicating that the rubric has been written for teachers, rather than students. Rubrics, however, should ideally serve both and, if being provided to students, the rubric should help to clarify and not complicate, as this one might.

The emphasis in the way the task is described in different sections varies, which has led to some misalignment. For example the rubric emphasises students' interpretation of the 'poet's use of poetic devices to construct a sense of place, supported by evidence and information from the poem and the poet's background'. However, the rubric does not explicitly refer to the second aspect of the task that was highlighted on the first page (with the use of bold and underline) and which requires the student to 'evaluate [their] personal response to the poem', 'consider how [they] connect to [their] sense of place' and 'how [their] sense of place has been influenced by the poem'. By contrast, the description of the task on the first page does not refer to the poet's background and refers only obliquely to the use of specialised terms regarding poetic devices in the description of field in the 'Language Features' box. In other words, the task description does not exactly match the rubric, the danger being that students who take the instructions on the first-and arguably most important-page at face value may receive lower marks. There is also the potential for inequity in outcomes between (i) students who use the marking rubric as the definitive guide, (ii) students who use the highlighted instructions on the first page of the task sheet as their chief source of information, and (iii) students who attempt to satisfy the requirements of both. The presence of this conflicting information also has implications for procedural complexity (Figs. 1, 2).

Year 8 English assessment rubric (p. 2)

Layer 2: procedural complexity

The presence of conflicting information in three different sections of the task sheet significantly increases the scope of the task by introducing new elements each time (see Fig. 3). For example, on the first page of the task sheet, the 'Task' is described as

Breakdown of Year 8 assessment instructions

Choose a poem from the list given to you by your teacher and use it to:

Create and deliver a presentation explaining how the poem uses language in an emotive way to express a sense of place, and evaluate your personal response to the poem.

Although this statement is broken into two sections, four ideas are presented, and each constitutes an element required to complete the task. Further information is then provided in the 'Aim' section (see Fig. 3 below), adding another four elements to the task:

This should include an analysis of how the poem uses language in an emotive way to express a sense of place and belonging and how you connect to it and what you learn about your own 'sense of place' from the poem.

Students are therefore required to complete eight elements to complete this task. Figure 3 visually maps these eight task elements to illustrate the full complexity of and contradictions in what Year 8 students are being asked to do in the assessment task.

It is important to note here that the task sheet is only one source from which students receive assessment information. Teachers often clarify the task through student questions. However, this type of clarification can increase the potential for further misunderstanding as students attempt to interpret the task sheet and to reconcile it with their teacher's verbal instructions. In other words, drawing conclusions about what is required in this task requires students to organise and prioritise both the information presented in the task sheet and the teacher's verbal instructions in class. Requiring this level of analysis and synthesis places a heavy cognitive load on 13 to 14-year-old students, and the contradictions and irregularities within the task sheet present an unnecessary level of challenge for students with ADHD or DLD. This is at odds with the Disability Standards for Education (Australian Government 2005), which calls educators to engage in assessment practices that are accessible for all.

Another factor that contributes to the procedural complexity of this assessment task is the required word count of 600 words together with the allocated speech length of 2-3 min. In the rubric on the second page, emphasis is placed on the use of a range of 'language features' to present a 'clear, highly engaging', 'cohesive', 'highly effective and reflective' presentation at the A-standard level. One of the language features assessed is pace, however, as the average number of spoken words per minute is 130 words, a more appropriate time limit for a 600-word speech is 4-5 min. Alternatively, a more appropriate word count for a 2- to 3-min speech is 250-400 words. The incompatibility of the requirements in the assessment task may negatively affect the achievement of students who attempt to present their whole speech verbally within the prescribed time limits. Furthermore, a rigid approach, where assessment modalities are prescribed-as in the requirement for a ' spoken multimodal presentation'-may result in discrimination against students with ADHD and DLD because of the nature of the language or cognitive difficulties faced by these students. Not only is this inflexibility at odds with the Disability Standards for Education (Australian Government 2005) but it is inconsistent with the Australian Curriculum, which was developed in accordance with the principles of Universal Design for Learning (Rose and Meyer 2002) precisely to enable flexibility and choice. At this point, we emphasise that we have only analysed visual and procedural complexity. The following analysis of the linguistic complexity of the task is designed to raise the awareness of assessment task designers so that they can address issues such as this in future designs.

Layer 3: linguistic complexity

For a reader to comprehend a text, both the vocabulary (that is, the words used within the text and the reader's understanding of these) and the syntax (word order, sentence and paragraph structure) must be accessible and meaningful to the reader (Nippold 2016). In attempting to help students understand the connection between the English unit and the associated assessment task, this sample task sheet outlines the 'Context', stating:

In this unit, you have explored the representation of 'sense of place' through local, Indigenous poetry and analysed how the poems create a connection to a special place through the use of poetic techniques which create imagery and evoke emotions.

This 40-word, vocabulary-rich sentence contains four verb phrases and five prepositional phrases. The linguistic length, density and structure of this sentence is taxing on the reading comprehension system and presents multiple opportunities for students with language or attention difficulties to misinterpret the message or disengage from the content. The linguistic length of the sentence is in part due to the use of prolix or unnecessarily wordy sentence construction. Furthermore, terms such as 'evoke', a low-frequency word (Australian National Corpus 2012), may not be readily understood by all Year 8 students. Thus, while this contextual information may have been provided in an attempt to support students by setting the scene of the task and modelling complex vocabulary, the language used in the Context section has the potential to instead cause comprehension difficulties, thereby reducing students' understanding of the task requirements.

Similar complexity is evident in the 'Aim' section, which utilises a complex, 42-word sentence comprising six verb phrases and five prepositional phrases:

This should include an analysis of how the poem uses language in an emotive way to express a sense of place and belonging and how you connect to it and what you learn about your own 'sense of place' from the poem.

Again, a complex syntactic structure is adopted in this sentence, where layers of meaning are built through a series of subordinated and coordinated clauses. To comprehend this sentence, a young adolescent reader must have superior working language memory, an understanding of the vocabulary used and the ability to synthesise several ideas, as we depicted earlier in Fig. 3.

In the rubric on the second page of the task sheet, the 'language features' section introduces technical, specialist discourse, relevant to the English curriculum. There is a significant difference, however, in the specialist discourse offered in the 'A' range standard versus the 'B-E' range standards in this area. For example, performances reaching an 'A' range standard are considered to demonstrate 'informal language', use of 'specialised poetic terms' and 'inclusive language', whereas tasks in the 'B-E' range demonstrate 'formal language', use 'language of judgement' and 'rhetorical devices'. It is possible that a copy-and-paste error is the reason for this inconsistency or it may be that the use of formal language in the B-E range is being taken as a signal that students have not recognised the tone considered appropriate to adopt when speaking to a fellow student audience. Either way, reliance on students' understanding of any of this technical terminology remains a concern, even if the document were consistent across the A-E standards. By including terms such as 'cohesive ties', 'inclusive language' and 'reflective' (a key term for understanding this task), the task sheet author assumes a shared meaning with the Year 8 student reader, which will depend on these terms being explicitly taught as part of classroom teaching experiences.

The tension of being transparent about marking criteria and attempting to embed fine-grained detail within the marking rubric is a challenging design issue. However, transparency can come at the cost of overloading and cluttering the rubric with too much information. If rubrics using specialist language are to be provided to students, students' comprehension of key terms should ideally be supported by a glossary that uses student-friendly definitions to ensure that students with ADHD or DLD can have access to this language on the same basis as their peers. And, although we do not have the space to analyse the effect of "competing logics" (Wall 2017) in this paper, the complexity of and contradictions within this task sheet does raise the question as to whether pressure on teachers to try and meet too many competing agendas has played a role in corrupting the integrity of this assessment task.

Discussion

Close analysis of this typical high school assessment task sheet makes this common and everyday artefact seem unfamiliar. It reveals a visually dense, procedurally difficult and linguistically challenging document. For adolescents with ADHD or DLD, it would constitute an informational minefield with their chance of doing poorly increasing with every repetition, each contradiction and each new 're-framing' of the task's aim, purpose, mode and success criteria. Certainly, students with ADHD or DLD are significantly disadvantaged as the demands of complex task sheets can work in ways that privilege students with the capacity to closely read, identify and reconcile the incompatibilities within the document to successfully execute the task. As we described earlier, inherent to the features of ADHD and DLD are difficulties with working memory, comprehension and synthesis of information. If the complexity of this task sheet creates access barriers that affect these students' ability to understand the task requirements, this will also prevent these students' from demonstrating what they have learned about the unit of study being assessed. This brings us to a key conceptual point that is fundamental to the principle of equity, and that is the a priori importance of accessibility. The driving question with which we start our discussion of the accessibility of and equity in assessment is this: Is the purpose of the assessment to grade students on their ability to decipher the assessment task sheet OR is the purpose to provide an opportunity for students to relay what they know about the text and have learned in the relevant unit of study?

We ask this question knowing that there is an historical perception that successful interpretation of an assessment task sheet is a prerequisite to demonstrating superior achievement: in that higher achieving students will "do better" in the task because they have the skills to analyse, interpret and approximate the required performance. The problem, however, is that assessment task sheets-even one as detailed as the one we have analysed-are not equally inaccessible. Design features that unnecessarily contribute to the visual, linguistic and procedural complexity of the task discriminate against students who have difficulty concentrating, processing dense tracts of text, distinguishing between important and unimportant information, and prioritising, organising and coordinating. We have chosen to focus on students with ADHD and DLD in this paper, however, the same challenges apply to students with dyslexia, students with Autism Spectrum Disorder, students with intellectual disability, students from a Language Background Other than English, Indigenous students, students with vision impairment, and students from disadvantaged backgrounds. These same students can be successful under the right conditions but-as we explained earlier-assessment task sheets set what Burbules et al. ( 1982) refer to as 'conditions of access'. These are conditions that dictate implicit skills known as 'criteria of access' that students must apply to successfully complete the task: some will be relevant to the first-order purpose of the assessment, but others may not be relevant.

A key issue in relation to the task that was closely analysed in this article is whether all the skills demanded by this task sheet are relevant to the central domain and performance being assessed. To determine this, we return to the theoretical framework informing our approach to analysis, and ask:

1. 1.
What are the conditions of access to this assessment and which criteria of access do they impose?

2. 2.
Which of these criteria are intrinsic to the task being assessed and which are functioning like stairs at entry to the assessment hall?

Our three layers of analysis have identified numerous areas in which the conditions of access set by the task design impose additional criteria of access that distract from the first-order purpose of the task and which inadvertently discriminate against students with ADHD and DLD by requiring students to

negotiate unnecessary visual complexity,

distinguish between important and unimportant information,

decipher what action is necessary from different sections of the task sheet which contradict,

reconcile competing purposes,

deliver a written speech in too short a timeframe,

engage with long, complex sentences and instructions that were most likely written for teachers, and

interpret specialist and technical language that may or may not have been explicitly taught in class.

The key question for teachers is whether the imposition of these additional criteria is fair and, to answer it, they must ask two more questions:

1. 1.
Are the additional criteria imposed by the assessment task sheet relevant to the core learning objectives of the curriculum and relevant unit of study (e.g. understanding literature in context, developing a personal response to literature, creating a multimodal spoken presentation)?

2. 2.
Might these additional criteria prevent students from effectively demonstrating their knowledge, either because they cannot understand what the task is asking of them or because the task itself does not allow sufficient time or space to enable students to do justice to each component?

These are important questions for teachers to ask when examining existing assessment tasks; however, the next and most critical step is to incorporate these equity principles into task design. Proactive planning and accessible task design is the most efficient and effective way to ensure that students with ADHD and DLD-not to mention students with dyslexia, students with Autism Spectrum Disorder, students with intellectual disability, students from a Language Background Other than English, Indigenous students, students with vision impairment and students from disadvantaged backgrounds-are provided with a genuine opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned and can do.

Conclusion and recommendations

While our analysis of a typical assessment task sheet highlighted some concerns about assessment design, it is not intended to undermine the important intellectual work that teachers do in designing authentic and valid assessment. Locally designed assessment tasks enable teachers to respond to the diversity of the learners in their classroom and consider how assessment design relates to the ongoing development of those learners. Teachers draw together information from curriculum documents, school priorities, pedagogic frameworks, and knowledge of students' cultural and social communities, as well as specific learning abilities and disabilities as they design assessment tasks. They are supported by policy documents that provide general principles for the design of assessment (Queensland Studies Authority 2013; Australasian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority 1995). Existing literature also includes important advice to consider the assessment from the perspective of the student (Cumming et al. 2013).

Recommendations for designing accessible assessment therefore need to consider not only accessible design elements, but also the experiences of learners, which is central to the definition of fair assessment (Klenowski 2014). Assessment task sheets are invitations to students to demonstrate their mastery of new understandings; however, these invitations must be evaluated in terms of the affordances they provide for different learners and whether learners can transform those affordances into action (Gee 2008). To conclude, we provide some additional, specific design recommendations to support teachers and student reviewers (see Table 1), as they address the important issue of access for many students based on our three layers of analysis.

Table 1 Design recommendations for equity in access

Alongside principles such as these, professional learning about conditions of access can help teachers make adjustments to their assessment designs. When teachers come to understand the barriers that conditions of access can create, they can readily 'design out' the types of accessibility issues we have identified in our analysis of the sample task sheet. In our research with two participating secondary schools, we used a preliminary version of the above recommendations in the form of an "accessibility checklist" to support teachers in their design work. Importantly, participating teachers reported that students who had not previously found success were able to demonstrate their learning with new levels of confidence. Rather than making individual adjustments after students begin to struggle, this article seeks to support teachers to learn more about accessible assessment in initial designs. Further research is needed to test the contribution that accessible assessment design can make to the engagement and achievement of all students, in addition to students with ADHD and DLD, as well as research to determine how accessible assessment design might affect teacher assessment literacy and workload.

Notes

1. 1.

Other contributing factors are the knowledge and attitudes of teachers towards students with certain disabilities, especially ADHD and DLD (Mulholland et al. 2015; Marshall et al. 2002), and the perceived trade-off between reasonable adjustments for people with disability and rigorous academic standards (Riddell and Weedon 2006; Poed 2016).

2. 2.

It is anticipated that this will change in 2018 when data from the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on Students with Disability (NCCD) will inform Australian Government disability loadings under "Gonski 2.0". At present, it is not clear how this change will affect the ways in which the different states and sectors allocate funding and resources.

References

1. American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5. Washington, D.C: American Psychiatric Association.

Google Scholar

2. Australian Government. (2005). Barton, ACT: Australian Government Publishing Service. Retrieved from http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/Programs/Documents/Disability_Standards_for_Education_2005.pdf.

3. Department of Education and Training. (2015). Education Adjustment Program (EAP) Handbook. Brisbane, Australia: Department of Education and Training.

Google Scholar

4. Dickson, E. (2011, October). Reasonable adjustment and the assessment of students with disabilities: Australian legal issues and trends. In Proceedings of Australia and New Zealand Education Law Association 20th Annual Conference (pp. 22-31). Australia and New Zealnad Education Law Association.

5. Graham, L. J. (2016b). 'Schoolwork' and 'teachers': Disaffected boys talk about their problems with school. In Challenging Dominant Views on Student Behaviour at School (pp. 115-131). Springer Singapore.

6. Graham, L. J., Davis, J., & Spandagou, I. (2017). What exactly is Differentiation and why is it so poorly understood? A systematic review. Inclusive education SIG symposium paper presented at the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) Annual Conference, November 26th-December 2nd, Canberra.

7. Moss, P. A., Pullin, D. C., Gee, J. P., Haertel, E. H., & Young, L. J. (Eds.). (2008). Assessment, equity, and opportunity to learn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Google Scholar

8. Norbury, C. F., Gooch, D., Wray, C., Baird, G., Charman, T., Simonoff, E., et al. (2016). The impact of nonverbal ability on prevalence and clinical presentation of language disorder: Evidence from a population study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12573.

Google Scholar

9. Poed, S. (2016). Adjustments to curriculum for Australian school- aged students with disabilities: What's reasonable? Unpublished PhD thesis. Griffith University.

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the English Head of Department from "Happy Days High School" for granting permission for this team to analyse their school's English assessment task sheet in support of this research, and the Queensland Department of Education and Training who funded the research through their Education Horizons scheme.

Author information

Affiliations

Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology, GPO Box 2434, Brisbane, QLD, 4001, Australia

Linda J. Graham, Haley Tancredi, Jill Willis & Kelli McGraw

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Linda J. Graham.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Download citation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Designing out barriers to student access and participation in secondary school assessment

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In an effort to support student agency in assessment, teachers seek to provide detailed instructions and advice in associated assessment task sheets. In this paper, we analyse a sample English assessment task to consider how such assessment design practices might inadvertently create barriers to access and participation.

# data[].attributes.body
Stephen Parsons - Chair: NAPLIC

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Stephen Parsons, , Chair, NAPLIC, Speech and language therapist

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is the term used when a person has difficulty with talking and/or understanding language, and for which there is no known cause. The condition starts in childhood and affects all languages spoken.

Perhaps surprisingly for a condition that relates to language, until recently there was no agreed terminology to describe this condition. This confusion has resulted in DLD being unrecognised and misunderstood. International consensus was agreed in 2016 (REF1), but still, most people do not know about DLD.

Developmental Language Disorder is common

DLD has been called the 'most common neurodisability that most people have never heard of.' With an incidence of 7.6%, this equates to two children in a class of 30. (REF2)

Think about how much talk children need to understand to access learning in the classroom. The discussion of a shared book and the learning of new mathematical or scientific concepts all require language. It is hardly surprising to hear then that DLD has serious impacts on students' literacy, wider academic achievement and mental health (REF3).

Identifying DLD in the classroom

DLD has been referred to as a 'hidden disability' (REF4) as it is impossible to tell by looking at someone if they have the condition. This is compounded by its variability. Confusingly, some students with DLD may even talk a lot. The most obvious signs of DLD will be students who cannot express themselves as well as their peers, using simpler vocabulary and shorter sentences.

Of those with this hidden disability, the most hidden are the students who have a poor understanding. Their expressive language may give some clues, but the severity of their needs may not be obvious. You may need to undertake some detective work to identify them as they rarely say 'excuse me miss, but I don't understand.'

If a student presents with any of the following it is worth taking a closer look, as they may have underlying difficulties with understanding language.

'Poor listening': many with DLD struggle with listening, but when they are paying attention do they understand what is said to them?

'Off-topic': in class discussion, they may pick up on the general gist and respond to that, rather than specifics

'Reading difficulties': some students with DLD may struggle with phonics, but even once they can decode do they understand what they read?

'Behaviour issues': difficulties understanding language impact on behaviour in many different ways and research studies show 60-90% of all students with behaviour difficulties have a language disorder (REF5).

Supporting DLD in the classroom

Diagnosis of DLD can only be made by a specialist, such as a Speech and Language Therapist, conducting a thorough assessment. There is no cure, and short term interventions will have limited effect, so the focus needs to be about long term support, strategies, self-management and awareness. (REF6) Because DLD presents in many different ways a personalised programme is essential, but these classroom strategies are a starting point.

Relationship: as with all vulnerable learners students with DLD need to feel they are understood and supported. They need trusted people to go to when they need to. They need people who know about DLD and how to support students with the condition.

Reduce the language load: differentiating whole class talk is a challenging skill to master, but a few modifications will make it more accessible for all learners. Use short, simple sentences. Use words you know they understand. Do not talk too long at any one time. Pause to allow processing time. Repeat key points. Summarise what you have said, especially if it has been longer or more complex.

Check their understanding: not all students who struggle with understanding language are aware of their needs or how much they are missing, so when asked 'do you understand?' they may answer 'yes', even when they do not. A better alternative is 'tell me what you need to do', or 'explain the process to a peer.' A strong relationship will make it easier for students to admit when they do not understand.

Non-verbal supports: when students struggle to extract meaning from language then alternative methods of conveying meaning need to be found. Use objects or hands-on learning where possible. A well-chosen image or photograph can act as a focus. Pictograms or symbols can be used to visually represent more abstract concepts. Free symbols are available from arasaac.org

Find out more about DLD go to naplic.org.uk/dld or follow us @NAPLIC on Twitter.

Stephen Parsons (@WordAware)

Chair, NAPLIC

References

1. Bishop DVM, Snowling MJ, Thompson PA, Greenhalgh T, CATALISE consortium (2016) CATALISE: A Multinational and Multidisciplinary Delphi Consensus Study. Identifying Language Impairments in Children. PLoS ONE 11(7): e0158753. pmid:27392128

2. Norbury, C. F., Gooch, D. , Wray, C. , Baird, G. , Charman, T. , Simonoff, E. , Vamvakas, G. and Pickles, A. (2016), The impact of nonverbal ability on prevalence and clinical presentation of language disorder: evidence from a population study. J Child Psychol Psychiatr, 57: 1247-1257. doi:10.1111/jcpp.12573

3. Conti-Ramsden, G., Durkin, K., Toseeb, U., Botting, N. & Pickles, A. (2017). Education and employment outcomes of young adults with a history of developmental language disorder.International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 53(2),237-255

4. Norbury, Courtenay. Guardian (2017): https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2017/sep/22/developmental-language-disorder-the-most-common-childhood-condition-youve-never-heard-of

5. Clegg, J., Stackhouse, J., Finch, K., Murphy, C., & Nicholls, S. (2009). Language abilities of secondary age pupils at risk of school exclusion: A preliminary report. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 25(1), 123-139. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265659008098664

6. Ebbels, S. H., McCartney, E. , Slonims, V. , Dockrell, J. E. and Norbury, C. F. (2019), Evidence‐based pathways to intervention for children with language disorders. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 54: 3-19. doi:10.1111/1460-6984.12387

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) by Stephen Parsons, Speech and language therapist

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Stephen Parsons, @WordAware, Chair, NAPLIC, Speech and language therapist Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is the term used when a person has difficulty with talking and/or understanding language, and for which there is no known cause. The condition starts in childhood and affects all languages spoken.

# data[].attributes.body
Thesaurus and word tools

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Thesaurus and word tools for your creative needs. Find the word you’re looking for!

# data[].attributes.body
Interactive visual dictionary and thesaurus

# data[].attributes.body
C Doyle

# data[].attributes.body
Hyde Park Central School District generated lists

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Curriculum & Instruction / Grades K-12 Tier II Vocabulary Lists

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Hyde Park Central School District empowers our community to strive for excellence and embrace the opportunities of our globally connected world.

# data[].attributes.body
Based on David Hyerle's work

# data[].attributes.body
Use this template for pre-post assessment of key vocabulary

# data[].attributes.body
Explore some of the myths about DLD

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Myths, misunderstandings, and half-truths make it hard for people who have developmental disorders get the help they need. Let's set the record straight!

# data[].attributes.headline
Gender differences in language development and disorder

# data[].attributes.subject
Gender differences in language development and disorder

# data[].attributes.body
Amy Wilder - University of Utah

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Amy Wilder
The University of Utah

Aren't girls naturally better at language than boys? Does this explain why fewer girls than boys receive speech-language therapy? Researchers have been looking into gender differences in language development and risk for language disorders for a long time. The story turns out to be more complicated than "girls are naturally better at language."

Gender differences in children with typical language

It is true that, on average, young girls acquire language faster than young boys. Between the ages of 10 and 24 months, as a group, girls are ahead of boys in using gestures. They also use more words and combine words sooner than boys. These gender differences occur in many different languages and cultures. This gap between girls and boys increases from age one to two years but may not last. Girls remain ahead of boys between ages three and six years, but the gap starts to decrease. In some studies, by age nine, boys and girls perform equally well on vocabulary measures and, by age ten, the gender advantage in vocabulary switches. However, other studies show a continued advantage for girls' vocabulary through tenth grade. Outside of vocabulary, differences might remain. For example, elementary school-age girls have performed higher than boys on storytelling tasks. In some studies, girls also outperformed boys in social language use.

There are several possible explanations for these differences. Language development may be influenced by children's social environment. For example, boys and girls may use language differently within their peer groups. Adults might also treat boys and girls differently. There may also be sex differences that are biological in nature. The neuronal connections for language in the brain may be different in boys and girls. Hormonal differences might also explain some of the language development differences.

Gender differences in children with language delay and disorder

Prevalence

Just as we see gender differences in children who are growing at a typical rate, we also see gender differences in children with language delays and disorders. The percentage of boys and girls who have language difficulties varies by age. Children ages 24-36 months with delayed language development are often referred to as children with 'late language emergence' or as 'late talkers'. Late talkers include children who start late, use fewer words, and fewer word combinations than other children. These children may have a delay in the number of words they use or the number of words they understand. Studies indicate up to 13% of children would be considered late talkers. Late language emergence is much more common in boys than girls. There are around 2.5-3 boys for every 1 girl. Around 60% of late talkers will catch up by age five, while about 40% continue to have below-average language skills. These children may later receive a diagnosis of DLD. We do not know exactly how or why some children with late language emergence catch up to their peers. We also do not know why other children do not catch up. Some research suggests having a family history of language and learning problems is part of the story.

Around 7-11% of children at school entry have DLD. Similar to children with typically developing language, the gender difference for children with language disorder narrows as children reach school age. DLD affects males and females at a nearly similar rate, 1.3: 1. There do not seem to be differences between boys and girls in the severity of their DLD symptoms, either. This is different from children with language disorders who also have a medical diagnosis (ADHD, autism, Down syndrome, etc.). In these groups, males are affected at a much higher rate than females (around 3 males for every 1 female).

Receipt of Services

Although the prevalence of DLD is similar between boys and girls, the rate of receiving services is not. Speech-language pathologists' caseloads often have more boys than girls. Between the ages of two years and five years, boys are about 1.7 times more likely than girls to receive language therapy services. In kindergarten, boys with DLD are 1.5-2 times as likely as girls with DLD to receive services. This gender discrepancy for receiving services is not due to differences in severity levels, as studies have not found consistent gender differences for severity of language impairment. It may be partly due to unconscious biases held by teachers and other professionals. The gender discrepancy for services could also be due to behavioral differences between boys and girls. For example, boys and girls might react differently to the frustrations of trying to understand and be understood by others. As a group, boys with DLD might be more likely to act out aggressively or become the class clown. In contrast, girls with DLD, as a group, might be more likely to become shy and withdrawn in social and academic settings. These differences in behavior may lead to DLD in boys getting more attention from their teachers and girls being overlooked. Another reason may be that teachers and parents have different communication expectations for boys and girls. A recent study found teacher rating scales identified DLD in boys twice as often as in girls. Yet, independent testing showed an almost equal number of boys and girls with DLD. Unfortunately, this difference suggests that many girls with DLD are not receiving the services they need to succeed.

Your child may seem quite different than the boys or girls described in this article. Researchers show gender differences in the language and behavior of children with DLD based on average group performance. However, it is important to keep in mind that every child with DLD is unique.

References:

1. Ash, A. C., Redmond, S. M., Timler, G. R., & Kean, J. (2017). The influence of scale structure and sex on parental reports of children's social (pragmatic) communication symptoms. Clinical linguistics & phonetics, 31(4), 293-312.

2. Collisson, B. A., Graham, S. A., Preston, J. L., Rose, M. S., McDonald, S., & Tough, S. (2016). Risk and protective factors for late talking: an epidemiologic investigation. The Journal of pediatrics, 172, 168-174.

3. Dale, P. S., Price, T. S., Bishop, D. V., & Plomin, R. (2003). Outcomes of early language delay. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.
Dunbar, R. I. (2003). The social brain: mind, language, and society in evolutionary perspective. Annual review of anthropology, 32(1), 163-181.

4. Eriksson, M., Marschik, P. B., Tulviste, T., Almgren, M., Pérez Pereira, M., Wehberg, S., ... & Gallego, C. (2012). Differences between girls and boys in emerging language skills: Evidence from 10 language communities. British journal of developmental psychology, 30(2), 326-343.

5. Lange, B. P., Euler, H. A., & Zaretsky, E. (2016). Sex differences in language competence of 3-to 6-year-old children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 37(6), 1417-1438.

6. McGregor, K. K., Oleson, J., Bahnsen, A., & Duff, D. (2013). Children with developmental language impairment have vocabulary deficits characterized by limited breadth and depth. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 48(3), 307-319.

7. Norbury, C. F., Gooch, D., Wray, C., Baird, G., Charman, T., Simonoff, E., ... & Pickles, A. (2016). The impact of nonverbal ability on prevalence and clinical presentation of language disorder: evidence from a population study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 57(11), 1247-1257.

8. Paul, R. (1993). Patterns of development in late talkers: Preschool years. Journal of Childhood Communication Disorders, 15(1), 7-14.

9. Rice, M. L., & Hoffman, L. (2015). Predicting vocabulary growth in children with and without specific language impairment: A longitudinal study from 2; 6 to 21 years of age. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 58(2), 345-359.

10. Suizzo, M. A., & Bornstein, M. H. (2006). French and European American child-mother play: Culture and gender considerations. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 30(6), 498-508.

11. Tomblin, J. B., Records, N. L., Buckwalter, P., Zhang, X., Smith, E., & O'Brien, M. (1997). Prevalence of specific language impairment in kindergarten children. Journal of speech, language, and hearing research, 40(6), 1245-1260.

12. Whitehouse, A. J. (2010). Is there a sex ratio difference in the familial aggregation of specific language impairment? A meta-analysis. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.

13. Wittke, K., & Spaulding, T. J. (2018). Which preschool children with specific language impairment receive language intervention? Language, speech, and hearing services in schools, 49(1), 59-71.

14. Zhang, X., & Tomblin, J. B. (2000). The association of intervention receipt with speech-language profiles and social-demographic variables. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 9(4), 345-357.

15. Zubrick, S. R., Taylor, C. L., Rice, M. L., & Slegers, D. W. (2007). Late language emergence at 24 months: An epidemiological study of prevalence, predictors, and covariates. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gender Differences in Language Development and Disorder

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Amy Wilder The University of Utah Aren't girls naturally better at language than boys? Does this explain why fewer girls than boys receive speech-language therapy? Researchers have been looking into gender differences in language development and risk for language disorders for a long time.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Developmental Language Disorder - Boys Town National Research Hospital Web

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Parent of a child with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) - DLDandMe.org

# data[].attributes.body
A simple overview of vocabulary issues and strategies to consider.

# data[].attributes.headline
Linking Language with Secondary School Learning

# data[].attributes.subject
Linking Language with Secondary School Learning

# data[].attributes.body
Program and resources by Julia Starling

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Links Resources – Linking Language with Middle and Upper Primary and Secondary School Learning

# data[].attributes.body
Raising Awareness of Developmental Language Disorder

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Welcome to RADLD.ORG, created to Raise Awareness of Developmental Language Disorder or 'DLD'. Here you will learn more about DLD, access resources and find out how to raise awareness.

SAVE THE DATE | DLD Day #dldday

Friday 18 October 2024

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE FOR SUPPORTING The 2023 DLD Day theme is 'DLD Around the World'.

Please share our website with family, friends and professionals. Our website is constantly growing, so please check in regularly. Send us your ideas or links to your own resources or activities about DLD to hello@radld.org.

DLD AROUND THE WORLD

Click on a highlighted country to see our international committee pages:

Meet RADLD Spokesperson Marie-Soleil Labelle "Sunny"

Hear about Growing with DLD from our RADLD Spokesperson Race Car Driver Marie-Soleil Labelle "Sunny".

The 2023 Dorothy Bishop lecture

Join RADLD for our annual Dorothy Bishop lecture in the lead up to #DLDday 2023 presented by Prof. Elizabeth Peña!

Learn more about RADLD

Learn more about DLD

How well do you know Developmental Language Disorder? Take our short quiz to test your knowledge.

More information

Here we share resources to help build your knowledge of this hidden but common condition.

More information

SAVE THE DATE | #DLDDAY 2024 FRIDAY 18 OCTOBER 2024 Developmental Language Disorder is a hidden but common disability that affects 1 in 14 people causing difficulties understanding and using language for no known reason. The 2024 DLDday theme will be announced in the coming months. Please contact the RADLD...

More information

Developmental Language Disorder

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. This results in children who have difficulty understanding what people say to them, and struggle to articulate their ideas and feelings. Recent research has shown that, on average,...

More information

Newsroom

Race car driver Marie-Soleil Labelle races to raise awareness of DLD/TDL as RADLD's first official Spokesperson Quebec (CA) Race car driver and bilingual French-English speaker, Marie-Soleil Labelle is known affectionately as 'Sunny'. RADLD is excited to announce that Sunny has joined us as our first official spokesperson. Sunny has...

read more

Amelia, a 9-Year-Old UK school girl and RADLD Ambassador, is living her best life. With support, she continues to reach her goals despite being diagnosed with an 'invisible' communication disability affecting 2 students in every class of 30. Amelia loves to be busy! She plays the cornet, enjoys dance,...

read more

Marie-Soleil Labelle is a young racing car driver from Quebec. Marie-Soleil has Developmental Language Disorder. What an inspiration! This video is in French, but you can add auto-subtitles if French is not your language. Thank you Marie-Soleil for sharing your story with RADLD.

read more

Get involved

RADLD is a movement of passionate academics, researchers, health professionals, educators and families from around the world committed to raising awareness of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD).
Events Partner with us

Stay up to date

Get the latest updates from the RADLD team straight to your inbox.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
RADLD - Raising Awareness of Developmental Language Disorder - RADLD

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Raising Awareness of Developmental Language Disorder (RADLD) is the international advocacy for people with Developmental Language Disorder.

# data[].attributes.body
Website with information and links to resources

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Welcome to DLD and Me! Spreading the word about Developmental Language Disorder Latest Articles What is Developmental Language Disorder? DLD is a brain difference that makes talking and listening difficult. DLD affects about 2

# data[].attributes.headline
Living With Developmental Language Disorder

# data[].attributes.subject
Living With Developmental Language Disorder

# data[].attributes.body
BoysTown Hospital

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Living with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) - DLDandMe.org

# data[].attributes.body
Moor House School and College

# data[].attributes.body
Find out how many people in your school or community are likely to have developmental language disorder.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Raising Awareness of Developmental Language Disorder

# data[].attributes.headline
SLP-EDUCATOR CLASSROOM COLLABORATION: A REVIEW TO INFORM REASON-BASED PRACTICE

# data[].attributes.subject
SLP-EDUCATOR CLASSROOM COLLABORATION: A REVIEW TO INFORM REASON-BASED PRACTICE

# data[].attributes.body
Lisa Archibald - The University of Western Ontario, Canada

# data[].attributes.headline
Developmental Language Disorder: The most common childhood condition you've never heard of

# data[].attributes.subject
Developmental Language Disorder: The most common childhood condition you've never heard of

# data[].attributes.body
Professor Courtney Norbury explains about Developmental Language Disorder

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Professor Courtenay Norbury debunks some myths about children with this common but poorly understood condition

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is diagnosed when children fail to acquire their own language for no obvious reason. This results in children who have difficulty understanding what people say to them, and struggle to articulate their ideas and feelings. Recent research has shown that, on average, 2 children in every class of 30 will experience DLD severe enough to hinder academic progress.

In a previous post for Head Quarters about DLD, some of the reader comments reflected commonly held misconceptions about children with the condition. It is one of the most poorly recognized and understood disorders of childhood despite its prevalence. Here Prof Courtenay Norbury debunks some of the most common myths.

Myth 1: She'll grow out of it!

One of the most common reasons parents seek advice from GPs and health visitors is that the onset of their child's first words is delayed. Well-meaning friends and families may try to alleviate parent anxieties by sharing stories of children who didn't say a word until the age of 5 and then came out with complex sentences!

However, research strongly indicates that a child starting school with limited language is very likely to have language deficits throughout the school years (and even into adulthood).

My own work has shown that children with DLD maintain a 2-3 year gap in language skills during the first three years of primary school, with little evidence of 'catching up' with peers. As language is the foundation for learning, children with DLD struggle in the classroom. Thus, teachers should be alert to the signs that a child needs extra support to develop oral language competence.

Myth 2: He's just lazy (or naughty)!

Many children with DLD have difficulty understanding what other people say, especially when others talk fast or there are distractions in the environment. They also have trouble remembering long instructions or formulating responses to questions.

The net result is that they may not do what others are expecting them to do, or their responses to questions may be off the mark. This is often misconstrued as disobedience or poor attention to what people are saying. Language is also the key tool for expressing our feelings and regulating our emotional states, and negotiating with peers. Without the language to do this, many children with DLD become frustrated, and express that frustration through acting out.

It is not surprising then that children with DLD are twice as likely as peers with good language to be rated as having poor attention and behaviour. This is probably a consequence of having to navigate the world with limited language.

So if a child is having trouble following instructions or is acting out, it is worth considering whether DLD could be playing a role.

Myth 3: It's not the kids who have the problem - it's poor parenting!

There is a long standing association between language deficits and social disadvantage, giving rise to a picture in the popular press of uneducated parents who just don't talk to their children enough. In fact, we know that in most cases, DLD arises from genetic influences on early brain development. We don't know enough about specific genes to have a biological test for language disorder, but we do know that parents rarely cause their child's language difficulties.

Children with DLD grow into adults with language disorders. They are very likely to have lower levels of literacy and less likely to attend University or apply for skilled jobs, which reduces economic opportunity. Thus, social disadvantage could reflect these genetic influences.

It is also worth remembering that language is a two-way street. If a child is not talking and doesn't respond readily, parents may find interacting with that child challenging. And if talking and reading don't come naturally to parents, talking and reading to a young, silent child may seem a very odd thing to do indeed!

Children from disadvantaged backgrounds who present with language delays should be a high priority for services such as speech-language therapy, especially if there is a history of language, literacy, or learning difficulties within the family. Just because DLD has genetic influences doesn't mean we are powerless to change it. Therapists can support parents to adapt their ways of interacting to enhance language development.

Myth 4: Two languages makes DLD worse

In our multi-cultural society bilingual parents often ask if they should restrict their input to only one language, or just English. The research evidence here is pretty clear - exposure to two languages does not cause or complicate language disorder. Children need high-quality language input, so parents should continue to talk with their children in whatever language they themselves feel most comfortable speaking.

Identifying DLD is more complicated - ideally we want to know what the child's competencies are in all the languages he or she speaks, but practically we do not have the tools to assess all of the more than 300 different languages that are now spoken in the UK. In these cases, delayed language onset, coupled with family history and slow progress in learning English after school entry, are clear signs that extra support may be needed.

Myth 5: We should focus all our resources on early intervention - it is too late once they get to school

We need to recognise that like other developmental conditions such as autism or Down syndrome, "cure" is not the goal of intervention. Instead, we aim to maximise language capacity, enhance communication using whatever level of language a child possesses, and provide additional support that will reduce the longer term risks to learning, social well-being, and mental health.

While early intervention is important, many parents, health and education professionals point to adolescence, and the transition to secondary school, as a period when children with DLD are particularly vulnerable. This is due to the increasingly complex language demands of the curriculum and the nuanced language needed to manage social relationships during the teenaged years. Unfortunately, services for children with DLD tend to reduce post-primary school and services for adults with DLD are almost non-existent.

In sum, it's important to remember DLD123: (1) DLD is a problem with speaking and/or listening, (2) it is hidden but common, and (3) support can help to improve the quality of life of affected children and their families.

Find out more: This week sees the publication of a special issue of the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry devoted to state of the art research on Developmental Language Disorder:[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcpp.2017.58.issue-10/issuetoc] Professor Courtenay Norbury is the issue editor.
Courtenay Norbury is a Professor of Developmental Language and Communication Disorders at University College London and the President of NAPLIC (Professionals Supporting Language and Communication Development Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Developmental Language Disorder: The most common childhood condition you've never heard of

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Professor Courtenay Norbury debunks some myths about children with this common but poorly understood condition Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is diagnosed when children fail to acquire their own language for no obvious reason. This results in children who have difficulty understanding what people say to them, and struggle to articulate their ideas and feelings.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"Roughly two children in every classroom will have significant language needs," explains Courtenay Norbury, professor of developmental language disorders at UCL. "[But] a teacher may not always recognise it as a language problem first. It may be spotted as a difficulty with learning, or with peers, with reading or behaviour. But very often it is a language difficulty."

Norbury is on a mission to find better ways of diagnosing language problems and to seek out more evidence-based interventions for teachers and specialists to support these children. In this week's Tes Podagogy podcast, she explains that the first step was to give these language issues a name.

" Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is now used as the term when children are not developing language as you would expect them to be - they will use shorter utterances, they may struggle to understand what you have said or asked them to do, they have difficulties with communicating with people. They say less and what they say is less complex. They tend to not understand context."

Miscommunication issues

Currently, children with DLD tend to be seen as "lower ability" or wilfully naughty. Neither, she says, is true.

"The assumption is often that they are naughty, but it is actually that they do not understand what you have asked them to do," she explains. "Behaviour is communication - if you can't express your need, or someone has misunderstood you, then children try and express that in another way. It is perceived as naughty behaviour but the child may simply not have the language skills to negotiate what they want.

"[But] if you were to speak to a young person with DLD, they will say the hardest thing is that people think they are 'stupid', and they are not, they just cannot explain themselves easily."

Intervention strategies

Interventions for children with DLD tend to be "variable", Norbury says. And the evidence suggests there is no cure for DLD, rather that it is persistent throughout school.

"Language disorder is persistent, you can make a lot of progress in primary school, but it is likely these children will still go into secondary school with a gap to their peers and in secondary the challenges will become greater because the language you need to access the curriculum becomes more complex," she explains.

As for what might work to help, the research is ongoing, but the teaching of specific skills seems to be the most effective strategy - which is why Norbury is wary of the rush to see vocabulary teaching as some sort of catch-all treatment.

"Vocabulary is hugely important, it is the building block of language, but while we can teach children vocabulary, there is no real evidence this cascades down into reading comprehension," she explains. "For example, you can teach children the word they need to understand an inference, but unless you teach them how to inference specifically, it may not come naturally to them.

"What we are learning is that kids are very good at learning the things you teach them, but that does not necessarily transfer to these other things we would like them to do, and that is particularly true of children with language disorders. You should not assume that just by teaching high-quality vocabulary, which is very important, that that will have transfer."

Screening programmes

In the podcast, Norbury goes on to discuss the pros and cons of diagnosis labels, the fact the causes of DLD remain largely a mystery and also the fact that a screening programme to spot DLD early may prove counter-productive in that it diverts cash away from much-needed interventions for older children with DLD, who tend to be more likely to experience SEMH challenges.

You can listen for free by downloading the podcast from iTunes or clicking below.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How misbehaviour can be a sign of language disorder

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"Roughly two children in every classroom will have significant language needs," explains Courtenay Norbury, professor of developmental language disorders at UCL. "[But] a teacher may not always recognise it as a language problem first. It may be spotted as a difficulty with learning, or with peers, with reading or behaviour.

# data[].attributes.body
What do you know about DLD? Click on the link for a short quiz.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How well do you know Developmental Language Disorder? Take our short quiz to test your knowledge.