Friday 17 October 2025
Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is often invisible in a busy classroom. You can’t see it in a glance. You might only hear it in the quiet moments — an instruction not quite understood, a story hard to share, a child who seems to drift when the language load gets heavy.
To mark DLD Awareness Day (October 17 2025), Catholic Education Matters podcast host Ashley Marsh, Catholic Education Sandhurst (CESL) Assistant Director: School Improvement and Safeguarding, sat down with CESL speech pathologists Lauren Cook (Senior Speech Pathologist) and Lauren Naish (Speech Pathologist, Wangaratta) to talk about DLD, what to look for, and how simple classroom moves can open doors for students.
“DLD occurs when a person has significant difficulties in understanding and/or using language,” says Lauren Cook.
“It touches every part of life from producing sounds and sentences to learning and memory and the social use of language. That’s why awareness matters: you can’t see DLD, but its impact is everywhere.”
DLD affects about 1 in 14 children — roughly two students in an average class — yet many families and educators haven’t heard the term. That invisibility can leave students working twice as hard just to keep pace with the language demands of school.
For Lauren Naish, the signs can be subtle and change across the years.
“You can’t see DLD but we can sometimes hear it. It might be a late talker, a child struggling to share ideas, a student who looks like they’re not concentrating, or one who needs instructions repeated over and over,” she explains.
“Often we see a shift around years 3 and 4. Earlier, we put lots of supports in place such as visuals and repetition. Then we peel those away and expect more independence. Suddenly it’s harder. The difficulty was likely there all along; the demands just increased.”
That is why early identification and everyday strategy matter. When teachers and families know what to look for, they can act early and keep acting as language expectations grow through the middle years.
The speech pathologists' emphasise that high-impact support doesn’t have to be complicated.
- Slow down teacher talk. Give processing time.
- Face the class. Avoid explaining while writing on the board.
- Tighten instructions. Strip out filler words. Highlight key steps.
- Add visuals. Simple dot points, keywords, diagrams, gestures. No fancy templates required.
- Adjust media. Nudge video playback to 0.9× so students can process complex language.
“If we don’t understand the cause of the difficulty, our support isn’t always targeted. These small shifts help all learners—and they make a real difference for students with DLD," says Lauren Cook.
Magnify Sandhurst already invests deeply in early reading and literacy interventions. The conversation makes a crucial link: gaps in oral language can undermine even strong literacy programs.
“I read something recently that said the gaps in oral language undermine even the most effective literacy initiative,” says Lauren Cook. “Identifying students’ language skills helps us use our literacy programs most effectively.”
From 2026, CESL will introduce OxEd (in partnership with Pearson) to screen oral language at school entry and provide targeted, small-group interventions, building a clear picture of each child’s expressive and receptive language and monitoring growth across the year.
“It’s exciting to have a program that identifies oral language needs at school entry,” says Lauren Cook. “Around one in four students start school with oral language skills not yet adequate for the curriculum demands. With OxEd, teachers can screen, we can support and we can track progress, so help arrives early and keeps pace.”
Lauren Naish is equally hopeful about the long view.
“We’ll build long-term data from Foundation onwards. If language demands increase in later years, we can look back and respond quickly. We’re not guessing - we’re guiding.”
Unlike many services that only assess, CESL’s speech pathology team provides assessment and intervention, visiting regularly enough to work alongside teachers, learning support officers and families.
“The power is in partnership,” explains Lauren Cook. “Speech pathologists love to share knowledge and perspectives about the difficulties students might be encountering. The biggest impact happens when the people who spend the most time with students can implement support every day, in every interaction.”
In the end, the message is simple and urgent.
“DLD could be impacting a person at any point,” says Lauren Naish. “If we keep that in mind, we keep students’ goals and progress front-and-centre.”
Lauren Cook adds: “Interactions you or I barely think about such as learning a new game or chatting with friends, can be hard work for someone with DLD. If the people around them are aware, school and life gets easier.”
Resources
DLD Awareness Day: practical explainers and 8 classroom tips - https://radld.org/
The DLD Project (Australia): resources for families and educators - https://thedldproject.com/
Speech Pathology Australia: Communication milestones: what typical language looks like at each age - https://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/
To listen to this episode search 'Catholic Education Sandhurst' on your favourite podcast app or click here.
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