Understanding language and using it to express thoughts and feelings are two of the most crucial milestones in a child’s life. While children tend to develop new skills at different paces, most hit these milestones at their expected ages. But when a child’s language skills consistently fall behind his or her peers, it may be due to a developmental language disorder.
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We travel to Battery Park City, Central Midtown, Chelsea, Chinatown, Clinton, East Village, Financial District, Flatiron District, Garment District, Gramercy Park, Greenwich Village, Harlem, Hell's Kitchen, Hudson Square, Kips Bay, Little Italy, Lower East Side, Midtown, Murray Hill, SOHO, Sutton Place, Theatre District, Times Square, TriBeCa, Turtle Bay, Union Square, Upper East Side, Upper West Side, West Village
What is Developmental Language Disorder?
A developmental language disorder (DLD) refers to language development problems in young children that persist even well into their school years and adulthood. It is a brain difference that makes it difficult for children to process and use language, whether in oral or written form.
Children with DLD have trouble with using words and sentences to express meanings, thoughts, and feelings. They are also likely to struggle with understanding and processing words (receptive language/auditory comprehension) that they hear or read. This is also known as mixed receptive-expressive language disorder or what researchers call specific language impairment.
[Know more about specific language impairment.]
The exact causes for a DLD are not entirely known, but research suggests that a DLD is heavily influenced by genetic factors. Children with developmental language disorder or specific language impairment struggle with social interactions, home life, and school performance. According to DLDandme.org, DLD affects up to two children in every classroom and is five times more common than autism spectrum disorder.
A DLD can occur even without developmental disorders, intellectual disability, or other biomedical conditions. However, children with DLD are likely to be at-risk for co-occurring conditions like autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), motor deficit, reading disorders, speech sound disorders, and social, emotional, and behavioral issues. Read SPELLTalk questions and answers about the language literacy network– which represents normal reading and writing processes.
[Read about Early Childhood Developmental Milestones.]
Areas That a DLD Affects
Children with DLD develop vocabulary and grammar at a much slower pace than their peers. Aside from these, a DLD can also affect other aspects of speech and language at varying degrees, including:
- Phonology or speech sounds – Children who struggle with phonology will have difficulties distinguishing and recognizing speech sounds.
- Syntax (grammar) and morphology – A child may struggle with creating grammatically correct sentences, adding prefixes and suffixes to verbs, and use of proper tenses.
- Semantics or vocabulary – Children with a DLD tend to have reduced vocabulary and struggle to understand that some words have different meanings. Read about Building Vocabulary With Critical Thinking Skills and Comparing Two Established Multimedia Approaches for Teaching Vocabulary to Students with and Without Disabilities. Word finding – Even when a child is familiar with a word, he or she will have trouble accessing or using it (tip of the tongue phenomenon).
- Pragmatics – This refers to social communication, inferencing, and figurative language. Children who struggle with pragmatics may have trouble using appropriate language (including nonverbal communication) in different social situations and daily interactions. Learn more about social communication disorder.
- Discourse (narrative and conversation) – Children with DLD often have trouble telling stories or describing a sequence of events.
- Verbal memory and learning – Remembering words, particularly unfamiliar ones, is difficult for a child with DLD. A child will also struggle to recall and understand long or complex sentences. These students have reduced working memory, which makes language learning more difficult for them.
How to Diagnose a DLD

A child who shows signs of having a DLD or language impairment can undergo an assessment by a speech-language pathologist (SLP) either privately or through the school or local school district.
The signs of a language impairment or disorder are often hard to detect, more so in the absence of co-occurring issues such as autism, hearing loss, or genetic conditions like Down syndrome. If a child exhibits the following symptoms, a DLD assessment should be considered.
- Significant language deficits in relation to one’s age that interfere with communication and learning in daily life.
- Persistent language problems that are likely to remain unresolved by age five.
- The language problems are not linked to any known biomedical condition.
During the evaluation process, an SLP will assess the child’s interest in communicating. Some speech-language pathologists are experts working with early childhood development whereas other SLPs work with the school-age population.  An SLP will observe how understandable the child’s expressive language is as well as his or her ability to understand words and sentences. A typical evaluation consists of the following steps:
- Interviewing the child’s parents, caregiver, and teacher to document the child’s family, health, and academic history. The SLP will ask about their own concerns and observations of the child’s strengths and weaknesses when communicating.
- Observing the child during conversation or storytelling and noting pronunciation problems, finding the right words, building grammatically correct sentences, and other relevant information.
- Taking a series of standardized tests to compare the child’s speech, language, and overall communication with expected levels for his or her age.
How to Treat Children with a DLD
Like other related language communication disorders, a DLD is a lifelong condition that cannot be permanently cured. But with the help of a speech-language pathologist, the child can learn strategies and techniques to help manage the condition.
After a diagnosis of DLD, the SLP will conduct further analysis and observations before creating an individualized program. The methods and strategies can vary from child to child, depending on their strengths and weaknesses. Eliciting, modeling, and scaffolding that target linguistic features through specific modalities, e.g. expressive, listening, reading, writing,  is how a licensed language therapist/pathologist models, teaches and reinforces aspects of language that need addressing. This includes sounds, vocabulary, grammatical structures, and social use.
In younger children, therapy is typically interwoven into natural communication, such as conversation and play! For older children, interventions are typically embedded in the school curriculum or within literacy activities. It is also essential to have parents and teachers involved in the process, as learning must happen outside of the language therapists’ sessions!
Know more about developmental language disorders:
Raising Awareness of Developmental Language Disorder (RADLD) – Helpful resources that explain what a DLD is, its impact, and how to help raise awareness on the condition.
The Universal Indicators of Developmental Language Disorders: A Checklist for SLPs– The Universal Indicators of DLD Checklist.
Language Disorders in Children and Adolescents, by Dr. Joseph Beitchman and Dr. E.B. Brownlie, report that approximately 50% of language-based learning challenges go undiagnosed.
Manhattan Letters also offers the following services:

- Early Childhood Expressive Language
- School Age Expressive Language
- Expressive Language Disorders
- Receptive Language Disorder
- Vocabulary Intervention
- Listening Difficulties (auditory and language processing)
- Writing & Speaking Intervention
- Comprehension- Listening & Reading Intervention
- Social Skills
Abstracts
- A 200-Year History of the Study of Childhood Language Disorders of Unknown Origin: Changes in Terminology by Laurence B. LeonardÂ
- Clinical Lessons From Studies of Children With Specific Language Impairment by Mabel L. Rice Â
- Children’s Language Disorders: What’s in a Name? by Rhea Paul
- Considering the Language Disorder Label Debate From a School Speech-Language Pathology Lens by Kimberly A. Murza and Barbara J. Ehren Â
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