Developmental language disorders

Developmental language disorder (DLD) is diagnosed when a child’s language skills are persistently below the level expected for the child’s age.

  • Parent-delivered teaching supports children’s early language development

    This article is a summary of the paper ‘An evaluation of a parent-delivered early language enrichment programme: evidence from a randomised controlled trial’ by Burgoyne et al. (2018), published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

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  • Children with a language disorder are vulnerable to sexual abuse

    Preliminary data suggest that children with language disorder may be at an increased risk of child sexual abuse (CSA),1,2 but few have studied the CSA experiences, disclosure patterns or reactions to disclosure in these children.

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  • Language impairment needs more recognition in the juvenile justice system

    Language and communication impairments in adolescents in custody is much higher than in the general population, estimates range from 60-90% compared to 7-12%. A study from Nathan Hughes and colleagues has investigated co-morbidity of language difficulties in a cohort of 93 young male offenders (15-18 years) held in a secure custodial facility in the UK.

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  • Parents should keep talking to boost infant language development

    Children from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds tend to have poorer language skills when starting school than those from higher SES backgrounds. Now, data shows that increasing the amount of “contingent talk”— whereby a caregiver talks about objects that an infant is directly focusing on — within an infant’s first year of life promotes a wide vocabulary later in infancy.

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  • Digital Interventions

    Many digital technologies are designed to be used in adjunct to established mental health treatments, not to replace them. Learn more with this Topic Guide.

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  • Developmental language disorders (DLD)

    Developmental Language Disorder

    Developmental language disorder (DLD) is diagnosed when a child’s language skills are persistently below the level expected for the child’s age. In DLD, language deficits occur in the absence of a known biomedical condition, such as autism spectrum disorder or Down syndrome, and interfere with the child’s ability to communicate effectively with other people.

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  • Processing speed determines dyslexia risk

    Males exhibit a lower average reading performance than females, according to new data from Anne Arnett and colleagues. The researchers devised a framework to first validate the apparent sex difference in prevalence of dyslexia and then determine which cognitive correlates may underlie this difference.

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  • ADHD screens: look into language

    A literature review of language problems in ADHD has confirmed large deficits in multiple areas of language functioning among young people with the disorder.

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  • The Parent Blame Game

    Seventy years ago Leo Kanner published his seminal paper describing autism. In that paper he also coined the term “refrigerator mother” apportioning some of the cause for the distinctive profile of autistic behaviour to cold, harsh parenting practices.

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  • joe elliott slide

    The Dyslexia Debate

    This recording is from Professor Joe Elliot titled ‘The Dyslexia Debate’. It is from the conference, ‘Dyslexia from assessment to intervention’ was held on Friday 29 September 2017, and was organised by the Welsh ACAMH Branch. The day promoted the notion that the assessment of literacy difficulties should be the first step on a clear pathway to individualised interventions for children or young people.

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