Never heard of DLD? (YES, you have). Don’t know anyone with DLD? (YES, you do).
With so much emphasis placed on raising reading scores, I spent a lot of time as a reading specialist ensuring my structured literacy lessons were evidence based, individualized and adaptive. I was thrilled when MA legislation mandated early literacy screeners and released Dyslexia Guidelines. Then I realized this was not enough.
It wasn’t until I worked closely with upper elementary students that I really understood that screening for word reading risk would NOT close the large gaps for many of my students, both with and without identified learning differences.
Lack of progress in standardized measures was a continuous reminder of these large gaps. Are test scores everything? No, but the alternative was to lower the expectations for my students and they deserved better. So, once again I turned to my most trusted colleague; research. And there it was-decades of research on DLD; developmental language disorder. So I ask and answer the questions;
Never heard of DLD? YES, you have. Don’t know anyone with DLD? YES, you do.
Here is what we know and WHY it matters.
WE KNOW: Developmental language disorder (DLD) is a neurodevelopmental condition that impairs the learning, expression, and comprehension of spoken and written language in people of all ages (Bishop et al., 2017). DLD is also referred to across a variety of settings as; expressive and/or receptive language disorder, language delay or developmental delay, primary language impairment, language impairment, specific language learning impairment…and the list goes on.
WHY this Matters: We need to know DLD (under this term) exists in order to build awareness for identification. It is estimated that 7.58% of students have DLD (McGregor, 2020). Additionally, many symptoms of DLD overlap with other language based disabilities like dyslexia and frequently co-occur, with an estimated co-morbitity between 17-71% (Adlof and Hogan, 2018).
WE KNOW: The following weaknesses most associated with DLD are seen below, with a clear overall weakness in functional communication. (McGregor et al., 2023)
-sentence formulation (expressive language)
-writing (expressive language)
-errors in grammatical morphemes or absence of
-organization and sequencing within a conversation or written expression
-reading comprehension
-word finding and recall
WHY this Matters: There are some oral language screeners that would identify weaknesses such as those listed above, but are not widely known to classroom teachers nor available outside of Speech Language Pathology. This causes MIS, UNDER, and OVER identification of students. Additionally, findings have shown that 88% (Norbury et al. 2016) of children with DLD did not meet benchmarks in 1st grade.
Early literacy screeners and work towards a prevention model for reading risk should be celebrated, but it is not enough, and our children need more.
