A study of how children with language disorder express themselves about their language skills

Abstract

The article presents a study on how three six-year-old boys with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) describe and illustrate thoughts about their language skills focusing on speaking and listening. Interviews and children’s drawings are used. As the children with DLD have receptive and productive language difficulties, the children’s drawings allow them to express feelings and thoughts in other ways. The case descriptions include information on the children’s language skills from PPR (Pedagogical Psychological Counselling). The children’s drawings and conversations are illuminated and analysed together for each child with a meaning-making perspective and a psychoanalytic perspective, as the focus is not just on the actual verbal spoken language.