Abilities and Disabilities Among Children With Developmental Language Disorder

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this study was to situate developmental language disorder (DLD) within the impairment and disability framework of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF); describe the functional strengths and weaknesses of a cohort of first-grade children with DLD and their peers; and explore the ways that language-related disabilities relate to language impairment, developmental risk, and receipt of language services. Method: We queried the caregivers of 35 children with DLD and 44 peers with typical language development about their children's language-related functions, developmental risks, and language services using mixed quantitative and qualitative methods. Results: The children with DLD presented with weaknesses in domains that are highly dependent upon language skill, including communication, community function, interpersonal relationships, and academics. They presented with strengths in domestic and personal aspects of daily living, play and coping aspects of socialization, and gross motor function. Caregivers of children with DLD expressed pride in their children's agentive and prosocial qualities. Consistent with the ICF, what distinguished children with DLD who had functional weaknesses and disabilities from those who had healthy function was not the severity of language impairment as measured by decontextualized tests of language skill, but the presence of cumulative developmental risks. Compared to those with healthy function, a larger portion of children with weaknesses and disabilities were receiving language services; however, two girls who had disabilities despite mild levels of impairment were without services. Conclusions: Children with DLD present with predictable strengths and weaknesses in everyday language-related functioning. For some children, the weaknesses are mild, but for others, they limit function to a greater extent and should be considered disabilities. The severity of language impairment is not a strong indicator of language-related function and, therefore, is not a good metric for determining service qualification.

A First-Person Account of Developmental Language Disorder

“…These problems are often subtle and specific; not all domains of motor skill are affected. In our most recent work, gross motor function was a relative strength for many of the children with DLD ( McGregor et al, 2023 ), just as it was for Paula.…”

With or without Feedback?—How the Presence of Feedback Affects Processing in Children with Developmental Language Disorder

“…Moreover, these results were not weighed heavily in our discussion of findings. It is unclear why children with DLD were less likely to complete the delayed test, but it is possible that their caregivers faced more obstacles in coordinating resources and obligations related to their child’s diagnosis [ 77 ].…”

Exploring Spanish writing abilities of children with developmental language disorder in expository texts

“…Children with DLD produce syntactically simpler sentences ( Marinellie, 2004 ) and find it difficult to understand both complex syntactic structures, such as dependent clauses and passive sentences (e.g., Bishop, 1997 ; Leonard and Deevy, 2006 ; Novogrodsky and Friedmann, 2006 ; Montgomery and Evans, 2009 ; Van der Lely et al, 2011 ; Leonard, 2014 ). Different studies have analyzed vocabulary and semantics in children with DLD and have observed that they typically present smaller and less rich lexicons than their typical peers ( McGregor et al, 2023 ) and show slower latency times and more errors in picture naming ( Lahey and Edwards, 1996 ; Lahey and Edwards, 1999 ; McGregor et al, 2002 ). Moreover, in receptive single-word vocabulary tests, they tend to score within the average range but statistically lower than their matched TD peers ( Gray et al, 1999 ; McGregor et al, 2002 , 2013 ; Sheng and McGregor, 2010 ; Haebig et al, 2015 ).…”