We are making Freedom of Information requests to all local authorities across the UK to identify specialist provisions for children and young people with language disorder, as the information collected currently does not cover this condition.

Most children and young people with DLD are supported in mainstream schools, often by Speech and Language Therapists and/or specialist teachers. A significant number of children and young people require higher levels of support, but still within mainstream school settings. These ‘units’ have a myriad of names including: ‘language resource provision, speech and language centre, language class and specialist support centre'. In the questionnaire we have referred to them as ‘specialist language provisions’.

Information about Developmental Language Disorder (DLD)
• DLD is the term agreed by international consensus (Bishop & CATALISE Consortium 2017) to describe people who have ongoing difficulties with understanding and using language (including vocabulary, grammar and social use of language).
• DLD is a speech, language and communication need (SLCN). It is not autism, as it primarily impacts on vocabulary and sentences rather than social interaction.
• DLD affects 7.6% of the population (Norbury, 2016) and so is 7 times more common than autism. It impacts on education significantly as most classroom learning is mediated by language.
• There has been a change in terminology and criteria, and many children and young people are under-identified.