Gaining a better understanding and helping a child with a language disorder

Only a physician, neuropsychologist, or speech-language pathologist can diagnose a developmental language disorder. Seek out their help if you notice that your child is having difficulty expressing themselves or understanding reading material. Most children with a language disorder experience the following difficulties:

• Delays in language development (e.g., at what age they start saying words and sentences)
• Confusion between similar sounds
• Comprehension issues
• Poorer vocabulary and difficulty understanding abstract words
• Difficulty articulating certain words
• Overuse of filler words (e.g., like, thing, stuff)
• Difficulty constructing complete sentences
• Difficulty summarizing long stories
• Emergence of a stutter
• Difficulty generalizing concepts
• Difficulty socializing

If your child is having language difficulties that seem to be interfering with their ability to function, you should consult a specialist. A good place to start is with a speech-language pathologist. As a communication specialist, they will be able to not only make an accurate diagnosis, but also suggest ways to help your child develop their language skills. They can also give you and your child tips on overcoming the challenges of DLD:

• Attending individual or group meetings
• Trying intervention strategies
• Using study tips
• Doing exercises at home
• Creating an individualized education plan (IEP) with your child’s school team
• Etc.

It may sound overly simplistic, but talking is a very effective way to improve language and comprehension skills. In fact, when you talk with your child, tell them stories, or ask them to make up their own, you help them do the following:

• Use vocabulary correctly
• Structure sentences properly
• Retain important information (e.g., from a story or a movie)
• Understand instructions
• Reproduce certain speech sounds
• Etc.

You can also use conversation to help your child in other ways:

• Explain more difficult words
• Rephrase their sentences if they make mistakes
• Describe objects
• Etc.

To help your child better understand homework instructions or explanations, use short, simple sentences and try to do the following:

• Encourage eye contact (e.g., ask your child to look at you, talk to them at eye level)
• Speak more slowly
• Pronounce all words correctly
• Add pauses to your sentences
• Play with intonation to emphasize important information
• Put things in context
• Etc.

Everyday activities such as bath time, dinner time, and car rides are great opportunities to play with speech sounds and stimulate your child’s language skills. For example, you could do the following:

• Read stories
• Recite nursery rhymes
• Sing
• Make rhymes
• Play guessing games

Kids love to imitate adults! You can use this to your advantage to help your little one improve their memory and pronunciation. Recite tongue twisters or nonsense words and ask your child to repeat them without stumbling. No need to correct them if they make a mistake—just have fun! Here are a few examples:

• Mumbo-jumbo
• Lidia the lion lies under the lilacs
• Hickory, dickory, dock

Developmental language disorder can make it harder for your child to understand certain concepts and instructions, and even to stay organized. Here are some strategies that may help:

• Use pictograms and visual aids
• Read instructions aloud and pause after each sentence
• Rephrase instructions using simple vocabulary
• Specify all the steps to each task
• Help your child plan out their tasks in order of priority
• Etc.