New to this topic? Start with our companion article: Developmental Language Disorder (DLD): What Brisbane Parents and Teachers Need to Know
If your child has been diagnosed with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), you might be wondering what happens next. How can you help at home? What should school be doing? And how can everyone work together to give your child the best chance?
The good news is that there are evidence-based approaches that make a real difference. DLD is firmly specialist territory, though — the strategies below are illustrations of what classroom support looks like and what therapy tends to target, rather than a DIY plan. A speech pathologist's assessment is what shapes which of these actually matter for your child.
What Classroom Support Often Looks Like
Teachers are in a unique position to support children with DLD. Small adjustments to how they communicate and teach can make the classroom much more accessible — and these are the kinds of shifts a speech pathologist will usually share with a child's teaching team.
Simplify and Chunk Instructions
Children with DLD often struggle with long, multi-step instructions. Instead of saying, "Get your maths book out of your tray, turn to page 42, and start on question 3," try breaking it down:
- "Get your maths book." (Pause.)
- "Turn to page 42." (Pause.)
- "Start on question 3."
Giving one instruction at a time, with a pause in between, gives your child time to process and act before they need to remember the next step. Use shorter sentences, emphasise key words, and pair spoken instructions with gesture or demonstration where you can. This is one of the simplest and most impactful adjustments — and the one teachers are often most surprised by. It feels too simple to work, but it consistently does.
Use Visual Supports
Visual supports are one of the most powerful tools for children with DLD. They reduce the reliance on spoken language and give children something concrete to refer back to. Examples include:
- Visual timetables to help children know what's coming next
- Written instructions on the board alongside spoken ones
- Key vocabulary displays with pictures, supporting topic-specific words
Pre-Teach Vocabulary
Before starting a new topic, introduce key vocabulary ahead of time. If the class is about to start a unit on ecosystems, teach words like "habitat," "predator," and "species" before they come up in the lesson. This gives the child a head start and means they're not hearing these words for the first time in a fast-paced classroom.
Research consistently shows that pre-teaching vocabulary improves comprehension and participation for children with DLD (Steele & Mills, 2011). (For a simple framework on which words to prioritise, see Tier Two Vocabulary.)
Check Understanding
"Does everyone understand?" is one question most children with DLD will nod along to even when they're lost. Speech pathologists often encourage teachers instead to ask a child to repeat an instruction back in their own words, or to check in quietly and individually rather than putting the child on the spot.
Across many years working alongside classroom teachers and learning support staff, I've seen that the small adjustments — chunking, pausing, checking in quietly — are the ones that consistently change a child's day.
What Families Can Lean Into at Home
Supporting your child at home doesn't mean running drills or worksheets. The everyday things that help most are the ones therapy will usually build on, not replace.
Talk, Talk, Talk
Conversation is the single most important thing you can do. Talk about your day, what you're cooking for dinner, what you saw on the way to school. Narrate what you're doing. Ask open questions and give your child plenty of time to answer.
- "What was the best part of your day?"
- "Tell me about your game at lunch."
- "What do you think will happen next in your book?"
If your child struggles to answer, offer choices or prompts: "Was it the maths or the art that you liked best?" Following your child's lead is key — and the car ride home from school is often the best time for these conversations. There's no eye contact pressure, and children tend to open up when they're not being looked at directly.
Read Together
Reading with your child — even after they can read independently — is incredibly valuable. It builds vocabulary, exposes them to more complex sentence structures, and supports comprehension.
- Talk about the pictures and the story
- Ask questions: "Why do you think she did that?" "What might happen next?"
- Explain new words as they come up
- Re-read favourite books — repetition builds language
What Therapy Targets
Alongside conversation and shared reading at home, a speech pathologist will usually target more specific areas in sessions — language comprehension, sentence structure, vocabulary depth, narrative skills, and word finding among them. Word finding in particular (knowing the word but not being able to reach it) is an area where therapy takes a structured approach that's genuinely hard to replicate from a list of home tips. These are the kinds of things therapy works on directly, and then coaches families and teachers to reinforce in everyday moments.
Working as a Team: Parents, Teachers, and Speech Pathologists
The children who do best with DLD are the ones who have a consistent, coordinated team around them. That means parents, teachers, and the speech pathologist all working together.
What a Speech Pathologist Can Do
At Speaking Speech Pathology, we work with children with DLD in a number of ways:
- Assessment to identify your child's specific strengths and areas of need
- Individual therapy targeting language comprehension, expression, vocabulary, grammar, and narrative skills
- Parent coaching and teacher liaison — sharing clear, tailored strategies via phone, email, and detailed reports so therapy carries over to everyday life and the classroom
How to Work with the School
- Request a meeting with your child's teacher early in the year to share what DLD means for your child
- Share your speech pathologist's recommendations with the school
- If your child has an Individual Education Plan (IEP) or equivalent, language goals are usually worth including
Consistency Is Key
The strategies that work in therapy need to carry over into the classroom and home. When everyone is using the same approach — simplifying language, giving extra time, using visual supports — the child gets a consistent message: "We understand what you need, and we're here to help."
Remember: DLD Is Not a Limitation
Children with DLD are smart, creative, and capable. They have strengths that deserve to be recognised and celebrated. With the right understanding, the right strategies, and a team that's working together, they can succeed at school, build friendships, and grow into confident communicators.
If your child has been diagnosed with DLD — or if you suspect they might — you don't have to navigate this alone. Get in touch to talk about what support could look like for your family. Any actual clinical work — assessment, diagnosis, or therapy — happens through a proper consultation tailored to your child.
References
Ebbels, S. H., Wright, L., Brockbank, S., Godfrey, C., Harris, C., Leniston, H., Ricketts, J., Moore, R., & Marić, N. (2017). Effectiveness of 1:1 speech and language therapy for older children with (developmental) language disorder. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 52(4), 528–539.
Steele, S. C., & Mills, M. T. (2011). Vocabulary intervention for school-age children with language impairment: A review of evidence and good practice. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 27(3), 354–370.
The DLD Project. (n.d.).
Alexandra Bouwmeester is a Senior Speech Pathologist (MSPA, CPSP) with over 14 years' experience supporting children with DLD. She offers mobile speech pathology and parent coaching to families across Brisbane's south side and Logan.
