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Developmental language disorder (DLD)
DLD is a persistent language disorder that affects daily functioning and learning and has no known biomedical condition behind it; it is heterogeneous and partly inherited, and in Hebrew it shows mainly as difficulty with morphology and verb inflection — in both comprehension and expression.
Why it matters in the exam
Exam questions deal with the definition and with what excludes it: under the CATALISE consensus, a language disorder associated with Down syndrome is called "language disorder associated with Down syndrome", not DLD; severe cognitive impairment excludes the diagnosis, but a nonverbal IQ of 80 without a known biomedical condition does not; and exposure to two or more languages does not exclude it. The diagnosis is made by a speech-language pathologist, together with further information about the child.
Signs and treatment are asked too: sentence repetition is among the most accurate tasks for identifying DLD at school age; the order of morpheme acquisition is like that of typically developing children, only late; in 20%–50% of affected children a parent or sibling has a similar diagnosis, and identical twins are more concordant than non-identical twins. Treatment uses recasting the child's utterance in the correct form, starts from goals in daily life, and short-term goals are defined and measurable. According to the Cochrane review the evidence is stronger for treating expression than for treating comprehension.
Key points
- DLD = persistent, impairing language difficulty with no known biomedical condition.
- With a known syndrome: "language disorder associated with...".
- Signs: verb inflection, morphology, sentence repetition.
- Partly inherited; heterogeneous.
- Treatment: recasting and daily, measurable goals.
Summary table
| Topic | What is true | What is not true |
|---|---|---|
| Definition (CATALISE) | Persistent language difficulty that affects functioning, with no known biomedical condition | "Specific" and an IQ discrepancy are not required |
| What excludes the diagnosis | Severe cognitive impairment, a known genetic syndrome, hearing loss as the cause | A nonverbal IQ of 80 and bilingualism do not exclude |
| Signs in Hebrew | Errors in verb inflection (person, tense), morphology in comprehension and expression, difficulty repeating sentences | There is no "single sign" in everyone; the disorder is heterogeneous |
| Heredity | 20%–50% have a parent or sibling with a similar diagnosis; higher concordance in identical twins | It does not come from parenting style |
| Course of acquisition | A similar order of acquisition to typical children, but slow | There is no "different" acquisition order |
| Treatment | Recasting, focused stimulation, daily and measurable goals | Weaker evidence for treating comprehension than expression |
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Sources
- Bishop et al. (CATALISE), Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2017 — Phase 2 of CATALISE: terminology for language disorder
- Leonard, Children with Specific Language Impairment, 2nd edition (2014) — Grammatical deficits and clinical markers
- Law, Garrett & Nye, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2003 — Speech and language therapy for children with primary speech and language delay or disorder
Sources are given for further reading; the text is written afresh and not copied from them.
Reviewed by the Examqo AI Professor · 2026-11-02. The text may contain errors; when in doubt, check the source.