This week is Neurodiversity Celebration Week. A fantastic initiative that focuses on challenging misconceptions about neurological differences and celebrating wonderfully different minds. For this Neurodiversity Celebration Week, we want to shine a light on Developmental Language Disorder (DLD).
Why focus on DLD?
There is a huge misunderstanding of DLD with many still unaware that it falls under the umbrella of neurodiversity. So, we want to shine a light on the 7.6% of children with DLD – that’s 2 or 3 in every classroom - who struggle with acquiring language in the same way as typically developing children.
To help improve understanding and to celebrate those with DLD, we’ve spoken to some children we work with, their parents, teachers and therapists so they could share their views of DLD.
Celebrating the children
Working with these children, it’s hard not to celebrate how wonderful they are. I have been a speech and language therapist for a really long time and am still in awe of the different ways they think, see and communicate. For me it’s an absolute joy!
I remember as a new speech therapist working with a child with DLD who struggled with understanding language. For years he’d masked his difficulties which meant he wasn’t referred to speech and language therapy until he was 8 years old.
He was the most wonderful, resilient person with a totally different perspective on the world. He had a good circle of friends and after we’d worked together for a few years, he asked me to explain to his classmates about DLD. It was such a brave decision, especially as he’d found it so difficult to show his difficulties to anyone before. His friends gained a greater understanding of DLD, some of the ways they could support him and were so supportive of their friend. It made his transition to secondary school a much more manageable situation, that would otherwise have been challenging.
One of our therapists also commented on how much she enjoys working with children with DLD.
‘I enjoy working with children with DLD because the children and young people are all unique in their needs and interests. Not one session or conversation is ever the same! I love the moments when they realise you understand them - the way they may see things differently, or the challenges they may face – it’s like you’ve helped to unlock an undiscovered area of their personality or a new superpower!’
It's hard at times for the children to see their differences as a superpower, but this is also how Lily Farringdon described DLD in her brilliant video. It’s a two-minute video that really brings to life DLD from the perspective of a young person – if you haven’t seen it I would recommend it to you and everyone you know!
It not only helps us to celebrate the children but gives us insight into DLD which is so important for the children.
Understanding DLD – it makes all the difference
Parents tell us they knew nothing about DLD before their child was diagnosed and resorted to google for information. I can’t imagine how it must feel to find out your child has a difficulty, then have to turn to google. We work with parents to support their knowledge of DLD as well as signpost to organisations such as Afasic, a parent organisation for children with Language Disorders. https://www.afasic.org.uk/
The children themselves also highlight the lack of knowledge about their condition which can be so difficult. Children have told me they feel stupid or misunderstood, that they have been told off for not listening or being ‘stubborn’ when often what sits behind these things are their language needs.
These misunderstandings can make life so much harder but is something we can all do something about. I was lucky enough to interview some children with DLD as part of my role at the Communication Trust and the thing that came back time and again was how important it was for people to understand the nature of their condition. When we can do this, it gives us great insight into who they are. Have a listen to the children here – you can really see how much they have to say and how they see the world.
DLD is complex, though the children can really help us to understand. One of our therapists talked about how one child described it to them:
I recall one child with DLD describing talking as every word being on the tip-of-their-tongue. I think this captures the condition perfectly; this experience is something we can all relate to (when we cannot retrieve a word we feel is 'there'). The reality for a child with DLD is that this experience can happen with nearly every word within a sentence. This can make them feel incredibly frustrated and misunderstood.
Supporting the children to share their thoughts and ideas
Often talking with the children can give the adults around them some great insight into what works for them. Sometimes children need a bit of time to work out their DLD, others are incredibly insightful about their own strengths and needs. We love the DLD & Me website and resources. It means we can support the children as they wrap their heads around DLD. One of our therapists created a resource from the DLD & Me website which she completed with a child with DLD.
‘The child was finding it challenging to think of ways he could be supported. I found this to be a good starting point as it took the pressure of him having to independently come up with the ideas. In more recent months, he has been having difficulty in class again, so we completed '5 ways to help me with my DLD,' – it’s quite specific to the child rather than general tips, but we thought they were so useful!’
His teachers have found his ‘Top Tips’ really useful; knowing the small tweaks they can make to their conversations and teaching to make sure he has a voice in class.
We can’t celebrate what we can’t see
At LINGO we love working with children with DLD. They are a joy to work with and supporting their development is an absolute privilege. We enjoy their company and happily see the amazing progress they can make with their language and learning. If you work in a school, you will have met children with DLD – at least two in every classroom. They need to be celebrated in this week of celebration and most importantly need to be seen!
If you'd like to find out more about DLD we'd highly recommend checking out NAPLIC and Speech and Language UK for lots more information and some fantastic resources.