S9 E9: Identify Developmental Language Disorder in your classroom, with Tiffany Hogan, Ph.D.

Episode Transcript
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Tiffany Hogan (00:00):
You've hit on something that I think has been

(00:01):
a bit confusing, when we thinkabout the innateness of
language, but yet it doesbenefit from explicit
systematic teaching.

Susan Lambert (00:14):
This is Susan Lambert, and welcome to Science

of Reading (00:15):
The Podcast from Amplify. Today we're continuing
our season-long reading reboot,reexamining and building on
foundational literacy concepts.
This time we're focusing onlanguage. What are the key
components of language? What isdevelopmental language
disorder, and why are manyunfamiliar with it, even though

(00:38):
there's a robust literatureabout the disorder? How can
educators support students withoral language deficits? Our
guide for these questions isDr. Tiffany Hogan. She's a
professor in the Department ofCommunication Sciences and
Disorders at MGH Institute ofHealth Professions in Boston,
among many other importantroles. She also hosts the

(01:02):
SeeHearSpeak Podcast. Listenerswill come away from this
episode with a comprehensiveunderstanding of language, DLD,
and strategies for supportingstudents. I'm now thrilled to
welcome Dr. Tiffany Hogan.
Tiffany Hogan, welcome totoday's episode. I am so

(01:23):
excited to have you on.

I'm so excited to be here.

For our listeners, we've been tag
teaming and trying to do thisfor a while. So I'm so excited
we could make it happen. I'mnot sure if all of our
listeners know who you are, soI would love it if you could
introduce yourself. And give usjust a little lens into how you
became interested in language.

Fantastic. What do they say? I'm a long-time
listener, first-time caller. Sothat's me. Love your podcast!
So glad to be here. I'm TiffanyHogan. I am a professor at MGH
Institute of HealthProfessions, and a research
associate at Harvard MedicalSchool in Boston. My training
is as a clinical speechlanguage pathologist. And I'm

(02:07):
currently a researcher. I studythe connection between speech
and language and literacyacross time in children.

That's really cool. And did you know when you
were a young child, "I'm goingto be a speech language
pathologist"?

It's kind of a funny story. I've always been
interested in human behavior.
So I was always kind of apsychology nerd. I thought I
would be a psychology major.
But when I got going, I becamemost interested in the language
aspect of psychology. And mymother is a speech language
pathologist, so it was in thefamily. So I kind of knew about

(02:41):
it. I thought I was gonna gopsychology, but knowing about
the field I was drawn to speechlanguage pathology. And I've
always loved children.

That's great.
That's really cool that it wasin the family. So you sort of
knew what you were gettingyourself into. Very, very cool.
So for our listeners, I'd loveif you could help us to
understand, and this soundslike such a basic question, but
it's so complicated. What islanguage? And why does it
matter for literacy? Like Isaid, it sounds like a silly

(03:12):
question, but when I ask peoplethis question, "Well, what is
language?" The definition ishard to sort of grab and wrap
your arms around.

Yes. Language is a complex construct. The key
aspect of language is we use itto communicate. And it is
something that it's innate tohumans. We wanna communicate
with each other. So we uselanguage as the vehicle for
communication. When we thinkabout language, it's
multifaceted. So in the mid70s, Bloom and Lahey classified

(03:46):
the complexity of language inthree primary components. And I
think it's helpful today tothink about these three
components as they relate tolanguage. It also helps us to
understand why it's hard todefine language, because it is
so complex. So Bloom and Laheylaid out three components:
form, use, and content. So theform of language, that's like

(04:08):
the sounds. It's the form inwhich we convey meaning. If I'm
talking about spoken language,like we are speaking to each
other today, it's sounds. If Iwas thinking about sign
language, the form would be themovements of the hands. Or the
hands and fingers in space. Butfor spoken language, it's
sounds. And then you have thecontent of language, and that's
the meaning that we'reconveying through our words and

(04:32):
our grammar. And then we havethe use of language, and that's
the social use of language.
What's often unspoken, or iscarried in the intonation of
our words.

And so all three of those then have an impact on
reading and writing. Can youtalk a little bit about how
they do that?

Yes. So all three of those components of
language are developing frombirth. And actually, we know
even in utero that children arepicking up on the patterns of
the language that they'rehearing outside of the womb. So
it's really developing veryearly on. And that's setting
the foundation. And that'sbecause when we think about a

(05:10):
child learning to read words,they have to connect letters
and sounds. And those lettersare representing the sounds of
language. And that sounds,that's the form that we talked
about, they're developing soundrepresentations often
unconsciously from birth on.
When we think aboutcomprehension, we're thinking
about the content of language,and the words, and the

(05:34):
vocabulary, and the meaning,and the sentences. And then the
use is really about pulling itall together. So, at the
discourse level, multiplesentences. How are those
sentences coming together?
That's setting the foundation.
The content and the use issetting the foundation for the
language comprehension forreading. And we know that

(05:55):
reading is comprised of wordreading and language
comprehension.

That sounds a little bit like you're
describing the Simple View ofReading.

Exactly.

That's really cool. And, I do have to ask you
one more question, becausespoken language is just sort of
a part of the language that wehave in our head. Now, I've
been working withkindergartners, so I'm gonna
give you a little bit of anexample of this. So if I talk
to kindergartners, and ask 'ema question, sometimes they

(06:27):
don't always have the words togive to the thoughts that are
in their head. That makes it alittle complex, doesn't it?

Absolutely! And language is complex. Because we
have this idea of concepts,what we want to say. And then
we have to then use language tosay that. And like you said
with kindergartners, they mightbe thinking, "I have this idea
in my head, but what's the wordto represent this?" Or, "I have
lots of ideas. How do I connectsentences to convey this

(07:00):
broader concept?"

Yeah. I have the same problem actually. I take
my dog for a walk, and I thinkof all these great things in my
head. And I think I can comehome and write them down, or
tell somebody. And it's notthat easy to do, actually. So,
it's not just for our younglearners. It really is across
the board, isn't it?

It is. And that's why we often hear that
writing is thinking. Andthinking is writing. Because
when you're trying to write orspeak out a concept, you have
to know it at a deeper level.
So, when I'm thinking outsomething complex, I'll wanna
write it out. So that I can seewhere the holes are in my

(07:40):
thinking. It's really thisreciprocal relationship between
the concepts, or the knowledgewe have, and the language we
have to convey that knowledge.

And one more push on this too. So, we often
hear that language is innate.
Or our brains have evolved tobe able to respond to this
language. But I can't rememberwho said this. There's a quote,
"Nobody is a native speaker ofacademic English." I wish I
knew who to attribute that to.

(08:11):
But there are some things thatwe have to do during the
learning and developmentprocess to really uncover and
expose some of this academiclanguage for our students.

Absolutely. And you've hit on something that I
think has been a bit confusing,when we think about the
innateness of language, but yetit does benefit from explicit
systematic teaching. And also,the more we read, the more
words we learn. Because we'relearning different words that
are used in academic language.

(08:41):
So it really is bidirectional.

Yeah, I love how you said that. We're gonna come
back to that in a few minutes,but I wanna go back to this
idea of language learning. Withmost everything, there's
variability there. So noteverybody learns at the same
pace, or the same way. So whenwe're thinking about that
variability in languagelearning, what should we be

(09:05):
thinking about? Or how shouldwe be thinking about that?

Language learning has variability that
you see in all skills. We knowthat we have neurodiversity
that exists in the humancondition in the brain. That
neurodiversity means that wehave lots of different ways to
think, and we each come to thetable with different brain

(09:29):
structures. Those structuresmake it easier for some to
learn languages, and it makesit harder for others to learn
languages. It also engenders uswith strengths that might be
unrelated to language. So whatwe see is that when we study
language development inchildren, in any language, what
we find is variability. And howeasily children can learn

(09:51):
vocabulary and grammar, inparticular. And sounds. So,
some children are really quickat learning a vocabulary word.
This means that they might hearit one time, regardless of the
language, they might hear itand go, "Oh, yep , that's what
it is." They store it in theirmental lexicon, or their mental
dictionary. Other children takemany more repetitions to learn

(10:12):
a specific word. This is thecase with grammar. This is the
case with sounds. And so thatvariation occurs. And in that
variation, some are at the lowend of the variation, and they
have a neurodiversity that wewould characterize as a
disorder, a disability. Becauseit makes it so difficult for
them to learn vocabulary andgrammar.

So, let's talk about dyslexia first. So that
disability is on the wordrecognition side. Like really
hearing the sounds, and beingable to put the sounds together
with the letters. But there'sanother concept too that I
think is now being calleddevelopmental learning disorder
or language disorder? Sorry.

No, it's okay.
Great. It's developmentallanguage disorder.

Is it a new concept?

Well, that's what I was just gonna say. It
is not a new concept. As longas we've been studying
language, we found that there'svariation, and it's been
studied for over a hundredyears. So, you have this
variation that occurs inlanguage, and you have some
children who struggle to learnlanguage. Whether it's their
native language, their secondlanguage, third language. It's
difficult for them to learnvocabulary words and grammar.

(11:25):
And this is similar to theconcept of neurodiversity we
see in dyslexia. Because indyslexia, children have a brain
structure that makes itdifficult for them to connect
letters and sounds to readwords. So, if we tie this back
to that simple view, we knowthose are the two primary
components. Word reading andlanguage comprehension. Just
like we know that if a childhas severe difficulties in

(11:49):
learning to connect letters andsounds, we would characterize
that as dyslexia. If they have,on the other hand, on the other
side I will say, of that SimpleView of Reading, if they have
difficulty in learninglanguage, then we see they have
that difficulty calleddevelopmental language
disorder, that's associatedwith language comprehension.
And importantly, there's a highoverlap between these two, but

(12:10):
there's not a one-to-onecorrelation. So it's about a
50% to 80% overlap. Meaningthat if a child has dyslexia,
there's a 50% to 80% chancethey will likely have a
co-occurring developmentallanguage disorder. And vice
versa. But it's not one-to-one.
We definitely have children whohave dyslexia, who have good
vocabulary and grammar. And wehave children who have

(12:31):
developmental languagedisorder, who can read words
accurately and fluently.

That makes me think of a couple things. So
first of all, DLD is sort of anew title for this. What did we
use to call it? And why are weswitching to DLD?

This is a great question. I think it's actually
why many of your listeners mayhave not heard of DLD in the
past, even though it's beenaround. We've studied it. We
have a large literaturecharacterizing children with
DLD. And that's for manyreasons, but one of the main
reasons is, because it's beenreferred to as so many

(13:07):
different labels. And it reallyhas to do with who's using the
label. So in schools, forinstance, children with
developmental language disordermay be identified for an
individualized education planas having a specific learning
disability in comprehension.
They might be identified ashaving a speech and language

(13:28):
impairment, which is a broaderumbrella term. And they might
be identified as having acommunication disorder, another
broader umbrella term. Or adevelopmental delay. Those are
labels that are used to qualifychildren with DLD for support
services based on I.D.E.A. So,we have to use those labels to

(13:49):
qualify children for services.
Now, if you were to go into theICD-10 codes you would see for
billing purposes, if you go geta neuro evaluation, there's a
code for expressive languagedisorder, or a receptive
expressive language disorder.
That's the same thing as DLD,but a different type of code.
If you look in the researchliterature, these children have

(14:10):
been called children withspecific language impairment,
or primary learning languagelearning disability, and DLD.
So in 2017-ish, 16 or 17-ish,there was an international
consensus put together by Dr.
Dorothy Bishop in the UnitedKingdom, who has studied
multiple neurodiversities. Andshe realized that, you know,
this is really frustrating.

(14:31):
People haven't heard of this,because across countries,
across silos, you see that thissame group of children is
called so many differentlabels. So in 2018, the
international consensus cameout and decided, through a
process of elimination anddiscussion, that we're going to
call this developmentallanguage disorder across the

(14:52):
world. Now, in manycontexts, it was a little
easier too enact this change.
In the US, it is very hard toenact a change like that,
because we have a complicatedsystem that involves the
federal system. We havemultiple associations of people
that have labels anddefinitions. And then we have
the state system. So I've beenworking with this group,

(15:14):
dldandme .org , and we have aninformational website, and
we've been systematicallytrying to tackle in the US
these different areas to getthe same label. And it's
exciting to say that now in theDSM, which we didn't even
mention, that's used bypsychologists, the DSM-5 now
has developmental languagedisorder included. The ICD -11
codes now include developmentallanguage disorder. And we

(15:38):
lobbied the federal educationsystem. And so they now put out
guidance that DLD is notprecluded as a qualifying
category in I.D.E.A.

Oh , there was a lot there .

So much to say about it .

First of all, thanks for helping us
understand that. And what cameto my mind is actually
Scarborough's Reading Rope. Andso when you think about the
word recognition, and ourlisteners are all familiar with
it, or the bottom part of thatrope, there's much less strands
involved than there is at thetop part of the rope. And not

(16:17):
to oversimplify dyslexia, butdyslexia by definition is one
thing. And it sounds to me likeDLD, just like language, is
quite complicated. And canmanifest itself in very
different ways. Is myunderstanding right there?

Absolutely.
We've characterized DLD as moreof a spectrum disorder, like
autism. So it's on a spectrum.
And that also means that youcan have these different,
varied strengths and weaknesseswithin a difficulty in
language. And DLD is typicallymeasured by a comprehensive
language evaluation, that hasmultiple subtests. And then we

(16:59):
look at the overall score tosee that they have difficulty.
But there are strengths andweaknesses even within those
subtests. So, you definitelyhave variability in persons
with DLD.

So that makes it a little more complicated for
the teacher, because I'mthinking about dyslexia.
There's really not a test fordyslexia. During the course of
instruction, we can sort ofinfer or see these kids are
really struggling with thisalphabetic principle and
getting automaticity there. Howcan a teacher sort of think

(17:32):
about DLD, or how to handlethat process?

It's really tricky. You mentioned that with
dyslexia, you really can tellwho has dyslexia based on their
response to the curriculum. Andso it's this dynamic approach
where you kind of measurethrough progress monitoring.
Teach word reading. And thenyou say, "Oh, you're not
learning it." We actually wannaapply the same principles to

(17:57):
language, because we want tosee is the child having
difficulty picking up onlanguage concepts? But to do
that, you first have to have areally good measure you're
using. You have to have acomprehensive measure. And
that's very tricky. Whatresearch tells us consistently
for the past 30 years is thatunless we actually measure
language, we are not going tobe able to see who has

(18:20):
difficulty in everydayconversation. We have a policy
paper, my colleague and I, thatwe say, "If you don't look, you
won't see." Because we have toactually start to get into the
process of systematicallytesting language ability and
language learning in theclassroom to see who has
difficulty. And research tellsus that if we rely on teachers

(18:42):
and parents to report thatthey're concerned, we miss
about 75% of children who havedifficulties. Because, in the
classroom, what we see is thatthey look like they're shy.
They could be hesitant tocommunicate. They might be a
child who looks around wheninstructions are given. They're

(19:03):
kind of seeing, "This wascomplicated. What's everyone
else doing?" So they're lookingto their peers to see what to
do. They might start outtelling you a sentence, and the
sentence just drops off. Theytell you stories, but they're
really confusing to understand.
There's pieces missing. Theymight be disorganized. They
might be learning vocabulary.

(19:24):
You're teaching them, you as ateacher are teaching them some
new vocabulary and they don'tseem to be getting it. It takes
multiple repetitions to get thevocabulary. These are some of
the signs. They also useimmature grammar. But immature
could be one to two yearsbehind. And to know what
immature grammar looks like,you have to know what grammar
looks like across the spectrum,which is very, very difficult

(19:44):
to do. And so, ultimately, wehave to measure language to
really understand who hasdifficulty. A good example is
vision screening. We used tonot screen for vision. We
thought we would be able totell who had a vision
difficulty. They'll besquinting. They'll be sitting
close to the screen, or the tv,'cause this was in the, the 70s

(20:05):
and 80s. But once we startedscreening for vision routinely
in schools, lo and behold wefound a lot of children who had
vision difficulties. But youcould not tell because, one,
the child didn't know they havedifficulty with vision, and
there was not a way to reallyuncover it in the day-to-day
interactions. And the samething can be said for DLD.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. We have
universal screeners now that weemploy in schools. But they're
typically identifying kids atrisk more related to word
recognition or dyslexia. Right?

Yes, yes.

Is there such a thing as a universal screener
for DLD?

So, there is a lot of progress in that area.
We recently published a paperreviewing 15 currently
available screeners in NorthAmerica to screen for DLD. And
one of the #1 questions I getasked is, which one should I
use? But it really just dependson the age of the children you
wanna screen, and your system.
There's more and more comingout since we published that

(21:05):
review paper last year. What Iwill say is, ideally your
screener will be embedded intoyour language comprehension
instruction in the schoolsystem. So for instance, you
mentioned dyslexia. The bestway to determine dyslexia is to
actually measure what you'reteaching. So yes, we need
universal screeners for DLD,but what we also need is to

(21:27):
incorporate progress monitoringof language across time within
the curriculum.

So there is room to grow in that area, is what I
hear you saying.

Absolutely.
Really, we know what we need todo, but the tools aren't really
there yet. But there areemerging. Really every single
day.

Yep . Yep .
That's, that's really exciting.
It reminds me, I was having aconversation with a colleague,
that I'm really excited,because the field has moved
towards a better understandingof word recognition. Its
importance. How to get kidswhere they need to be. When you
need to give kids morepractice. But we don't have as
much understanding of the upperpart of the rope, or the

(22:08):
language side of it. And justreally paying a lot more
attention to that will bereally important all the way
around, for researchers,practitioners, and everyone.

Absolutely. But I'm also excited, because I see
that educators are recognizingthat children have gaps in
their background knowledge. AndI think the focus on background
knowledge is exactly the focuswe need for language, because
language and backgroundknowledge are intimately tied.
So when we're thinking aboutbuilding background knowledge,
we do so by teaching vocabularyand language to actually

(22:41):
strengthen the conceptualknowledge we have. And by
strengthening language, we'restrengthening the way that
children can convey theirknowledge. So when we're
talking about language andknowledge, it's really part and
parcel that we're doing both.
As we focus on knowledge andreducing a knowledge gap, we're
also focusing on language. Andwe can start to build in these

(23:02):
measures to see who's learningthe knowledge that we're
teaching. And if they're not,why are they having difficulty
learning?

Yeah. We're gonna dig into that a little
bit more, but I would love ifwe could get you to answer a
question from our listenermailbag. We've gotten so many
great questions from around thecountry, actually around the
world. This one comes fromMichael K., a teacher in
Hawaii, and he asks, for a4-year-old student, so we're

(23:29):
going way back to beforeschool, right, for a 4-year-old
student with developmentaldelays who has deficits in oral
language, a slow processingspeed, and hasn't learned very
many letters, what would beeffective activities for
helping? And Michael askedabout phonemic awareness, but
it might be a broader answertoo, in terms of development

(23:53):
and preparation for literacy.
What would your advice be?

Absolutely.
First, it's important and to becommended that this child is
identified as having difficultyin these areas. As I mentioned,
it's hard to do that at times.
And so this child has beenidentified. So, first and
foremost, we don't seedifficulty in oral language as
a red flag for difficulties andcomprehension. We think of that

(24:19):
as a crystal ball. This childwill have difficulties, and
those difficulties can bemitigated by strengthening oral
language instruction. The waywe do that is, one, providing
multiple opportunities to learnwords. What does that look
like? We wanna providechild-friendly definitions. We
wanna provide the child theopportunity to use the word in

(24:42):
multiple sentences. And hearthe word in multiple sentences.
We want to be explicit aboutvocabulary learning. Like, hey,
this is a new word. What's thislike? Well, there's some sounds
we can think about in thisword, which kind of addresses
the phonemic awareness issue.
We could talk about what theword means. How it's connected
to other words that the childwould know. And also, I

(25:04):
wouldn't hesitate, even veryearly on, to write the word
down. We know that writing of aword actually helps the child
to be able to pronounce it andrecall it, in terms of oral
language. That's thinking aboutthe vocabulary. What you're
gonna see consistently is thatacross language structures,
whether it's vocabulary,grammar, social use of

(25:24):
language, or sounds, like wesay for word reading, we need
systematic explicitinstruction. And that explicit
part is very important as well.
Really leaning into telling thechild, "I know this might be
difficult for you, but we'regonna work on it together. And
we're gonna give you lots ofopportunities for practice."
And so being mindful that thisis going to be a support that

(25:45):
the child will need acrosstime. How you get that support
depends on the child'ssituation. They could be seen
by a speech languagepathologist within an early
childhood setting. They couldbe seen by a team of educators
that are knowledgeable inlanguage. There's also a role
the parent can play in reallytrying to highlight and

(26:06):
facilitate languagedifficulties, and ensuring that
the child doesn't let thatlanguage difficulty get in the
way of their learning. And thatthey see the strengths they
have.

That's great.
I'm gonna follow up onsomething you said, "Oral
language difficulties are acrystal ball into reading
comprehension." Can you say alittle bit more about that?

Well, as a scientist, I don't say that
lightly. We have severalstudies that show that there is
a very high correlation. I'vehad the honor of working with
families and studying childrenacross time. And we have one
study in particular where wetested children once a year
from pre-K to grade three. Andwhat we found is that in pre-K,

(26:49):
their oral language ability wasso highly predictive of their
third grade reading that it hadvery little error.

Wow.

I think that's what's important in
understanding theselongitudinal study results, is
it doesn't mean that we can'tchange the trajectory of
individual children. What ittells us is that we should
really pay attention whenchildren are struggling early
on, and we should support themover time.

That's great. I love that. Great question,
Michael. Brought up some greatthings, so thank you for that.
So let's go back now to thisconnection between background
knowledge and language. And,I'm just gonna say it. There's
a tiny bit of tension in thefield about background
knowledge. Do you activate it?
Do you develop it? How do youthink about that connection?

Yeah, I think a lot of it actually comes down
to the language we use todescribe background knowledge
vs. language. It's very metathat way. I think that we are
trying, as fields, to cometogether. Because we oftentimes
have people who studybackground knowledge, and we
have people who study language,and they need to come together.

(28:01):
And I think there's a lot ofthat happening now. I'm excited
to see it! I think the trickypart is that when we think
about language, we're conveyingconcepts or feelings that we
have. So we have these ideasthat we want to convey, and we
have to find the right words toconvey them. I'm doing that
right now myself . And Iknow we all do that every day

(28:22):
as we're trying to find thewords to convey our concepts.
And that tension I think iswhat we see in the field when
we think about backgroundknowledge vs. language. And
there's a few studies that are,I think, quite fascinating to
think about this. So, forinstance, there's a famous
study of how Inuits in Canadawill represent snow, the idea

(28:44):
of snow they represent, with 30different words.

Wow!

And because of that, the studies have shown
they actually have moreknowledge about snow. Because
they're attending to thedifferent variations of snow.
Because of the language theyhave, the words they have for
snow, they've specified theirsnow knowledge. The reverse is
also true. We have conceptualknowledge, whether we get that

(29:10):
through lived experiences orwhat we've been interested in,
our interests. As we developthat conceptual knowledge, we
will often search for words torepresent that conceptual
knowledge. As our conceptualknowledge builds, our language
ability will build. There'sreally a bidirectionality that
occurs between backgroundknowledge and language. And

(29:33):
having said that, we do knowthat with this reciprocity,
language is the conduit tobackground knowledge. When we
want to convey our backgroundknowledge, and we want to teach
background knowledge, we oftendo it through language.

And it occurs to me that it's very difficult to
separate your knowledge fromvocabulary, because vocabulary
is the thing that representsthe knowledge in which you
have.

100%! And the way that even these studies of
background knowledge uselanguage, like, tell me what
you know about this, or do youknow this vocabulary word, to
represent the backgroundknowledge. And actually, tying
this back to DLD, when you talkto persons who live with DLD,
they will often say howfrustrating it is, because they
have a concept, but they can'tconvey it through language.

(30:25):
It's a limitation in that way.
That they're like, "Oh, I justwant to convey my feelings! I
wanna convey what I want. Iwanna convey this story. But
I'm struggling for thelanguage." And that's another
example of a bit of adisconnect between concepts and
language.

Yeah. You may have heard this story. So, last
year at this time, my dadactually had a major stroke,
and it left him with severeexpressive aphasia. But he can
understand everything we say tohim. And that frustration, it's
still really hard for him, butyou can see it, that

(31:03):
frustration. The ideas are inthe head, right. The intellect
is still there, but theinability to get those words
out is a very frustrating thingfor people.

Yes. And we call that aphasia. And DLD used to
be called developmentalaphasia.

Oh really?!

Yeah, actually it did. But what's been found
is that it's a little tricky,because with your father, he
had developed language and thenhe had difficulty in a certain
area. So he has a system thatwas very diffuse that became
very specified. And when it'sspecified, you can have a
difficulty in one and not theother. It's trickier with
children with DLD, becausethey're starting out with

(31:42):
neurodiversity in the brain.
And so we see that the tiebetween receptive and
expressive is actually prettytight through the years for
them. It starts to separate alittle, but we see that it's
pretty tight. It's kind ofinteresting that way. I'm so
sorry to hear that, but itsounds like he's doing great so
far.

Yep . Well, he's doing better. And he has found
out that he can actually singall the songs that he knows,
so.

Wow.

So he does a lot of singing, which is really fun
.

Oh wow, that's great! And is he seeing a
speech language pathologist?

He is. He's also seeing a music therapist. And
so yeah, he's leveraging allthe rhythm of language and
really loves that .

That's really fantastic! Well, speech
language pathology just spans awide range. Our scope of
practice is huge. We work withadults and children. And we
work with lots of differentcommunication difficulties. I
say that linking to yourfather, but also making an
important point about DLD, andthat is that when you want to

(32:44):
learn more about DLD, you mayapproach a speech language
pathologist who might not knowas much about DLD. And that's
because the caseload is veryhigh in schools. And because
also they may have differentknowledge. They may be working
with someone who has atracheotomy. They may be
working with someone who hasswallowing difficulties. Or
someone who has aphasia. Sowe're trying to get the word

(33:05):
out not only to educators aboutDLD, but even within our own
field is this name change. Andwhat this is and what it means.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And thank you
for explaining that a littlebit, because I would imagine
that we have listeners that arepre-service teachers, thinking
about what's next in theircareer. And I think when I was
a teacher, I had no idea what aspeech language pathologist
did. I had no idea. I'm sorryto say that, but no encounters

(33:34):
with it. Didn't understand therange, and the breadth, of what
it takes. And for anybodyinterested in language, it's a
really interesting field.

Oh, thank you for saying that! I think that
in general, allied health isnot something that is known,
like occupational therapy,physical therapy, speech
language pathology. Unless youhave a certain life situation
or a family member thatrequires these services,
they're not known. So yes, bigshoutout. I love the field of
speech language pathology.

Shoutout to all of our SLPs. So, as you're
thinking about language, and inany context that we've been
talking about, what is a reallyurgent and or important message
that you have for oureducators?

So my message to educators who are listening is
that you can make a differencein the life of a child with
DLD, and you can make adifference in how your school
system or what you're doing toactually approach language and
to really figure out who hasdifficulty in language, what
you can do for them. When Igive talks on DLD, I challenge

(34:35):
my audience to talk about DLDfive times the next week.
'Cause then you can get theword out. And learn more about
it. Because there areapproximately two children in
every classroom that have DLD.
Because it's 10% of thepopulation.

Wow.

And these children are often hidden. We
say they're hidden in plainsight. And you, as an educator,
can be the one that reallymakes a difference for that
child. It only takes one personto make a huge difference in
the life of a child, as youknow.

Yes. That's a great message. What about you?
What's next for you? Or what'snext for you in your research?
What are you thinking aboutthese days?

Yeah, so what I spend a lot of time thinking
about are two things. One, howdo we get the word out about
DLD .

We're trying.

All over, and you're trying , that's why I'm
so grateful for thisopportunity. Oh, it just hits
right at what I'm trying to do!And with many others who are
dedicated to DLD. The secondthing I often think about is
how to create systems inschools, or how to better
implement the evidence basethat we have. So implementation
science is the process ofreally reducing the gap between

(35:43):
what we know to do and what wedo every day . And that really
involves systems . So creatingsystems that allow for
evidence-based practice, andusing the science that we know
about reading and aboutlanguage. So that's been very
exciting, because I get to workwith teachers, and speech
language pathologists, andadministrators every day
thinking about how to improvesystems.

That's a great reminder. Thank you for that.
We often forget about theknowing-doing gap. How do you
make it happen in a school? Toknow the stuff isn't enough.
You gotta do it too. Exactly.
Any final thoughts for ourlisteners?

I just wanna thank you for taking the time
out of your day to learn moreabout language and DLD, because
I know your time is precious,so thank you. And thank you for
really applying your prodigiousskills to educate children, and
to make a difference in thisworld, because you are making a
difference one child at a time.

Yeah. It's a great message. Well, thank you
so much for joining us. We areso glad to have you here. And
we'll be linking some stuff inthe show notes so our listeners
can learn more. So thanks againfor joining.

Thank you for having me.

That was Dr.
Tiffany Hogan, professor in theDepartment of Communication
Sciences and Disorders at MGHInstitute of Health Professions
in Boston. She's also thedirector of the Speech and
Language (SAiL) Literacy Laband the Center for

Translational Research: Implementation science and (37:08):
undefined
Dissemination for Equity(cTIDE) and research associate
at Harvard Medical School. Wehave links in the show notes to
several incredible resourcesthat we discussed, including
the DLD website that Dr. Hoganco-founded, dldandme .org .
We'll also have a link to herpodcast, SeeHearSpeak. And also

(37:32):
to the recent review ofscreeners, as well as for a
fascinating conversation aboutphonemic awareness. the policy
paper that Dr. Hoganreferenced. Next up in our
reading reboot, we will bejoined by Dr. Jane Ashby for a
fascinating conversation aboutphonemic awareness.

Jane Ashby (37:49):
If there's a problem with the phonological
system, it's gonna percolateall the way up. Through
learning how to read, learninghow to spell, learning how to
write.

That conversation will be right here
in two weeks. Also, the latestepisode of Beyond My Years is a
great listen for fans of thisshow. Host Ana Torres speaks
with Simone McQuaige about thetransformational literacy work
that she's done in herdistrict.

Simone McQuaige (38:17):
Just like many districts across the nation, we
were a district that was abalanced literacy district. And
we have been a balancedliteracy district for 20+
years.

Ana Torres (38:28):
Wow!

Simone McQuaige (38:29):
And so we needed to shift some of our
practices. And so, how do youtake a district with 140
elementary schools, where youhave been working to make sure
that everyone understands thecurriculum, so everybody's on
one page, and then you say , "Uh , we're gonna do something

(38:52):
different."

Find out what happened on the latest episode
of Beyond My Years . We'll alsohave a link in the show notes.
Remember to subscribe toScience of Reading: The Podcast
on the podcast app of yourchoice, and share it with your
friends and colleagues. Jointhe conversation about this
episode in our Facebookdiscussion group, Science of

Reading (39:13):
The Community. Science of Reading
brought to you by Amplify. I'mSusan Lambert. Thank you so
much for listening.

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