Estimated to affect 10% of students in every Australian classroom, language disorder is a common but widely misunderstood neurodevelopmental disability which impacts how a person thinks about, understands and uses oral language, Emily Campbell writes.
IEU Chapter Representative and teacher at Mancel College in Brisbane, Joanne Wood, shares how staff at the specialist school support students with language disorder to thrive and reach their potential.
One-of-a-kind school
Joanne has worked as a classroom teacher at Mancel College (formerly known as the Glenleighden School), a specialist Prep to Year 12 school nestled in the western Brisbane riverside suburb of Fig Tree Pocket, for the past 13 years.
It is the only school in Australia that caters exclusively for students diagnosed with language disorder.
“The ethos of Mancel College is to educate and support students with language disorder, enabling them to establish connections, find a sense of belonging and attain their goals by harnessing the expertise of a diverse team of professionals,” Joanne said.
“I am very fortunate to work alongside a team of allied health professionals who are a constant source of expert knowledge in understanding and supporting the unique needs of students at the school.
“My role is to deliver the Australian Curriculum to students who have a language disorder, which involves a highly differentiated teaching model where every child is given the opportunity to succeed and neurodiversity is celebrated,” she said.
Mancel College is operated by not-for-profit organisation Language Disorder Australia, a group established in 1976 that is committed to providing high-quality education, support and advocacy for children and young people with language disorder.
Alongside Mancel College, Language Disorder Australia also runs Bright Door, a multidisciplinary therapy and support service available to children and young people with language disorder and School Support Services, who enhance education outcomes for students in mainstream schools by providing consultation, intensive support and professional learning opportunities for school staff.
Prior to working at Mancel, Joanne worked in mainstream education, where she developed an interest in learning support after becoming increasingly aware of how little knowledge she had to address the needs of students who found learning challenging.
“I studied further to try and address this gap in my knowledge and became more interested in learning support and special needs,” Joanne said.
“Following this, I began taking on roles in this area and developed a real passion for it.
“When a vacancy appeared at Mancel College, I jumped at the opportunity to work at such a specialised school,” she said.
What is language disorder?
Language disorder is more common than well known developmental disorders like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and can adversely impact the achievement of potential in education and career.
It is diagnosed when children fail to acquire their own language for no apparent reason.
Language disorder is a persistent and lifelong disability for which there is no cure; however, it can be effectively treated with intensive therapy and support to manage and minimise the impact.
According to Language Disorder Australia, some red flags that may indicate a language disorder include:
- reduced babbling (for toddlers)
- limited use of gestures (eg waving, pointing)
- family history of language disorder
- difficulties understanding
- difficulties combining words to make sentences
- behavioural concerns
- educational concerns, and
- parental or teacher concerns.
- Children and young people with language disorder may also present with:
- attention problems such as ADHD
- motor problems such as developmental co-ordination disorder
- reading and spelling difficulties, and
- emotional and behavioural concerns.
Language disorders may occur in isolation or alongside another condition, such as ASD, intellectual disability, Down syndrome, hearing impairment and acquired brain injury.
Joanne said people with a language disorder may find it difficult to develop new skills quickly, may be unaware of how to take responsibility for their own independence and may have poor awareness of dangerous situations.
“These students can have difficulties maintaining neatness and orderliness or alternatively be over reliant on order,” she said.
“Students with language disorder can find it difficult to establish peer relationships and be accepted by their peers.
“They might be unaware of problems or how to initiate steps to a solution, sometimes fail to recognise authority figures and can be very literal in their understanding and use of language,” Joanne said.
Joanne said due to these repercussions, a young person with language disorder is at significant social, academic and vocational risk.
“Students with language disorder require learning to be delivered in small, manageable steps using explicit instruction, with many repetitions,” she said.
“Vocabulary and concept development needs to be developed through multimodal learning.
“Many students at Mancel require learning to be concrete and benefit from hands-on activities to make meaningful connections by reducing the language load,” Joanne said.
Specialist support staff
Having a team of allied health specialists and support staff, including occupational therapists, speech pathologists and physiotherapists, benefits the students and teachers at Mancel.
“It makes an enormous difference having such expert knowledge to support teachers, as understanding the challenges that each student faces and how to overcome them goes way beyond pedagogy and basic teacher training,” Joanne said.
“At Mancel, there is a collective understanding that every child is unique and deserves to succeed and that each child can fulfil their learning and communication potential while overcoming barriers, allowing them to become confident, independent people.
“The staff recognises that no one person can achieve this on their own and that everybody in the team plays a crucial role in supporting the students,” she said.
Given language disorder is an invisible disability, Joanne said it was important for mainstream schools to improve the ways they support students to prevent them slipping through the cracks.
“I think there should be more awareness of what language disorder is and how to detect it,” Joanne said.
“These students often struggle to follow instructions,both in and out of the classroom and can feel very isolated,” she said.
PD opportunities for school staff
“There are many professional development (PD) opportunities to upskill and become more informed about language disorder and by introducing some very manageable adjustments and accommodations within the classroom, learning will become more accessible for these students,” Joanne said.
Joanne recommends IEU members engage with some of the varied PD opportunities being run by Language Disorder Australia, which are specifically designed for school staff.
A wealth of free professional learning resources including videos, fact sheets and online learning modules are available for IEU members to access on Language Disorder Australia’s website, including a new series of PD webinars for educators.
Previous webinars have been recorded and are available online, addressing the following topics:
- sensory regulation in the classroom
- social problem-solving and conflict resolution
- morphology
- executive function skills
- using effective communication in the classroom
- understanding and supporting students with reading difficulties
- resilience and task perseverance
- transitioning to high school
- sentence structure
- supporting EAL/D students
- building self-esteem and confidence
- multi-modal communication, and
- fine motor skill development.
The multidisciplinary team at Language Disorder Australia’s School Support Services work with state, Catholic and independent schools across Queensland to develop individualised approaches to supporting students in mainstream schools.
They can provide multidisciplinary assessment, intensive support capacity building, professional learning and report unpacking to eligible Queensland schools.
Joanne said the Language Disorder Australia staff are committed to providing beneficial and engaging evidence-based information for teachers, support staff, therapists and the broader community.
“All staff who work for Language Disorder Australia feel strongly about raising awareness of this unseen disability, as too many students have gone through school undiagnosed and unsupported,” Joanne said.
For more information, visit https://ldaustralia.org