What is Developmental Language Disorder (DLD)?

It's important to note that several terms are used to define the same impairment most recently labelled as "Developmental Language Disorder". Here is a list of those synonyms:
  • specific language impairment (SLI),
  • severe language impairment, 
  • later talker,
  • primary language impairment,
  • language disorder,
  • verbal learning disorder,
  • in French, we also hear the term "dysphasie" or dysphasia.

DLD:
  • ​Children who have DLD have limited receptive and /or expressive language abilities.
  • They often have difficulties with speech sounds (phonological processes), word finding difficulties, a hard time naming objects/verbs, shorter sentences, difficulty with past tense verbs, among others. 
  • They may have difficulties with written language (reading and writing)
  • In short, they have limited language abilities.
  • Furthermore, they often have subtle cognitive shortfalls, ex.:
    • limited cognitive abilities,
    • slow information processing,
    • poor working memory.
What are language disorders?
  • The DSM-V uses the term language disorder as a general term that captures DLD among other language impairments. However, on this website, a language disorder is when a syndrome or concomitant disorder occurs (ex. neurological impairment, pervasive developmental disorder, hearing impairment or motor disorders). In this case, the language difficulties are secondary and not primary. This coexisting disorder or syndrome can be neurological, sensory or motor.
  • Check out RADLD.ORG for more details. Also, take a look at the very useful fact sheet below.
  • https://radld.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/DLD-Fact-Sheet-English.pdf
See the following YouTube video to learn more about DLD.
See the following link to calculate on average how many people in your community have DLD:
https://radld.org/about/dld/population-calculator/