They Told Me My Child Has a Language Disorder
My child was just diagnosed with a “disorder” and now I’m extremely worried. I thought they were just delayed…
Every day, a parent somewhere has been told that their child has a Language Disorder. They become frozen, their stomach drops, and the parental anxiety seeps over their body. They nod agreeably to the therapist, but in their head they are spinning. They went into the room thinking that their child was simply delayed. But now they’ve been told that they have a disorder.
Please don’t get caught up on the words: “delay” is a regular word, “disorder” or “impairment” are medical words.
I will tell you right now, I can never type down in a speech therapy report that a child is “delayed.” As a medical professional who bills to insurance, I have a limited number of official diagnoses I can give and they are all scary sounding. If I use the word “delay,” that implies to the insurance company “ah, they are just running a little late but will catch up on their own” and then they won’t pay for your therapy. I want you to get the services you need, and in order to do that I need to tell them all the information.
The big words that show up in speech therapy diagnoses are “impairment” and “disorder.” So you will see things like “speech and language disorder,” “speech production disorder,” “receptive/expressive language impairment,” etc in my reports. I report all the facts in a blunt way in order to efficiently give the information to those who may be reading your file.
So instead of writing “Damien is a late talker because of a couple of ear infections but he’s going to be just fine,” you will read in my report “Damien presents with a moderate expressive language disorder and a mild speech production disorder secondary to chronic otitis media.” Same thing, I’m serious. Even to patients I have been seeing for a long time I will remind them, “I wrote Damien’s progress report and here is your copy. Please remember that I highlight all the areas of need. The diagnosis at the end of report might sound a little scary, but don’t let that distract you from all the amazing progress he’s made that we celebrate every session.”
If you have a speech therapist who is good with words, hopefully they will verbally explain your child’s diagnosis to you in a way that you understand, and then save the official sounding language for their documentation. But not everyone is like that. If at the end of your evaluation someone tells you, “she has a speech and language disorder…”
Please remember that those are technical terms and in no way summarize who your child is or how well they are going to do.
In some instances, therapists use the word “delay” to describe a more mild situation, such as a child who understands everything but doesn’t talk that much yet. That therapist may use the word “disorder” for kids who don’t talk and understand much yet. But this depends on the therapist. Ask your therapist to elaborate what they mean if they give your child a diagnosis.
Remember:
-the words “impairment” and “disorder” are technical/medical terms
-speech therapists usually can’t use the word “delay” in reports (but doctors sometimes do)
-the words “impairment” and “disorder” do not imply how bad something is or isn’t, they simply signal to the medical people that this child will likely benefit from some kind of service or treatment.
Written By:
Stephanie Burgener-Vader, MA, CCC-SLP
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