What is a language difficulty?
Language difficulties can sometimes be surprisingly difficult to spot. Someone may be chatty, read words accurately or appear to follow a conversation while still finding it difficult to understand language or express their thoughts clearly.
I sometimes identify signs of language difficulties during my assessments when neither the individual nor their family had previously considered them.
Difficulties may affect understanding language (including receptive vocabulary) or expressing thoughts (including expressive vocabulary) or both. One possible diagnosis is developmental language disorder which is diagnosed by a speech and language therapist.
Understanding language
Someone may find it difficult to understand individual words or may rely heavily on familiar words and context to work out what is being said. Others understand individual words well but find longer sentences or more complex spoken information difficult to process.
This can mean someone:
zones out during conversations or lessons
doesn't follow through on instructions
can read individual words but struggles to understand what they've read
needs information repeated or explained differently
finds lengthy or complicated verbal information exhausting
Language difficulties can sometimes look like ADHD. Someone may appear distracted or not to have listened when the underlying difficulty is actually understanding what has been said.
Expressing language
Someone can be very chatty and still have expressive language difficulties.
They may struggle to find the word they want, use many words to explain something that could otherwise be said more briefly or find it difficult to organise their thoughts clearly in speech or writing.
Other people may appear unusually quiet because expressing themselves is difficult. They may produce less written work than expected or have difficulties constructing grammatically accurate answers.
"I understand" doesn't always mean "I understand"
One thing I've noticed repeatedly is how reluctant people can be to admit that they haven't understood something.
They may smile, nod or watch what everyone else is doing and copy their response. They may worry that admitting they don't understand will make someone think they weren't listening or simply feel too embarrassed to say anything.
Even when they do ask for clarification, they may still struggle to understand the explanation they're given. It's easy to see how this can affect confidence, relationships, education and work - and sometimes create considerable frustration for everyone involved.
What should I do if this sounds familiar?
If our initial discussions suggest that language difficulties may be the main reason for your or your child's challenges, I'll usually recommend exploring these first with a speech and language therapist.