What's in a name? Investigating labels and legislation in education for children with developmental language disorder (DLD)

Abstract

Oral language skills are foundational for learning to read and predict academic achievement and life outcomes. However, children with developmental language disorder (DLD), a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition that affects one’s ability to understand and use language, tend to be identified late or not at all. In fact, the majority of children with DLD are not receiving services in schools. Two potential barriers to identifying children with DLD are the lack of consistent terminology and the lack of systematic language screening in schools. This dissertation investigated the usage of educational terminology and educational legislation to find potential facilitators for identifying and serving children with DLD in schools. The first study examined the usage of educational categories as defined in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) on a national and state level within the United States. A significant age-related trend was observed in the use of two categories, in which younger children tend to be categorized as having “speech or language impairment,” and older children tend to be categorized as having “specific learning disability.” This cross-sectional finding suggests that on an aggregate level, the prevalence of the assignment of these two IDEA categories changes over time. The second study aimed to further explore the findings of the first study through a longitudinal dataset following students with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) in a partner school district from kindergarten to fourth grade. More than one-third of participants were found to have experienced a change in their primary IDEA category, and 9% of participants experienced two or more changes over the course of this five-year period. Students who were originally categorized as having “developmental delay” or “communication” impairment were significantly more likely to experience a category change during elementary schooling. This suggests that educational category assignment is unstable, and students often receive multiple IDEA category names, which can cause confusion for parents and educators. The final study investigated the degree to which oral language skills are included in existing state-level dyslexia legislation through an exploratory document analysis. Out of 49 states with such legislation, ten states were found to include the term “language disorder” or a more vague, related term in the scope of dyslexia legislation. More than half of states had policies that included at least one language-related keyword, the most common of which were “comprehension” and “vocabulary.” This suggests that in many states, there is potential to use existing legislation as a starting point to advocate universal oral language screening. Collectively, these studies explore the barrier of inconsistent educational terminology and the facilitator of existing dyslexia legislation towards identifying children with DLD. These findings carry important implications for improving identification of children with DLD in educational settings.