- What is Language Disorder?
Language Disorder impacts a child’s ability to understand and use language.
Language Disorder is a neurodevelopmental disability that impacts a child’s ability to understand and use language. It impacts children and young people’s everyday social interactions and education.
What is Language Disorder? - School Support Services
Every child deserves the chance to succeed at school.
Getting a good start in school provides the foundation for a child’s learning and development for the rest of their lives.
School Support Services
Upcoming Webinars
Stay tuned, more webinars coming soon!
Past Webinars
Vocabulary Strategies for the Upper Years
14 November 2024
Vocabulary development in childhood is a crucial indicator of later academic, social and cultural development. As students progress into upper primary and high school, vocabulary becomes more technical and abstract. Not only must students navigate increasingly complex curriculum-related language, but also the changing language required for day-to-day peer interactions. Educators and other school staff play a vital role in supporting their students’ vocabulary understanding and use across the curriculum.
This webinar covers:
- Key considerations about vocabulary in upper primary and high school years
- Impacts of executive function skills on vocabulary
- Aligning vocabulary instruction with the science of learning
- Specific strategies to teach vocabulary in the classroom
- Free online resources/tools to support vocabulary instruction
This webinar is part of a two-part vocabulary series. It is recommended that learners also watch the Vocabulary Strategies for the Early Years webinar, which was presented on Thursday 7th November 2024.
Vocabulary Strategies for the Early Years
07 November 2024
In this webinar, Jordan Wellington (Senior Speech Language Pathologist) and Ashton Moncrieff (Senior Speech Language Pathologist) discussed how to support students’ vocabulary development by sharing valuable research and practical evidence-based strategies to create a rich language environment within the classroom.
Learning Objectives:
- Develop an understanding of vocabulary development of students across their schooling years.
- Understand the importance of vocabulary skills in the classroom.
- Identify how vocabulary difficulties can present within the classroom.
- Explore evidence-based strategies to support vocabulary development for students within the early years of schooling.
Navigating the Transition to High School
20 August 2024
In this webinar, Nicole Lindgren (Inclusion – Specialist Educator) and Brady Smith (Senior Occupational Therapist) discussed how to support students with Language Disorder to navigate this important schooling milestone by sharing valuable insights and practical strategies to create an inclusive environment with a strengths-based approach.
Learning Objectives
- Understand the importance of supporting transition into high school
- Recognise the specific needs of students with Language Disorder when transitioning to high school
- Discover evidence-based strategies to support this transition in the primary and high-school context
Interoception
11 June 2024
Taryn van der Westhuizen (Senior Occupational Therapist) and Emily Rendell (Senior Physiotherapist) explored the concept of interoception—how we perceive, interpret, and process internal bodily sensations—and its relevance to students with Language Disorders. Discover how interoception difficulties manifest in educational settings, gaining insights into patterns of awareness, characteristics, and associated behaviours. Acquire practical strategies tailored for classroom use to enhance students’ interoceptive awareness and support their learning journey.
Oral Narrative
6 June 2024
Ashton Moncrieff (Speech Pathologist) and Meg MacKenzie (Speech Pathologist) presented the webinar Oral narrative, which, in the form of storytelling, is a crucial skill linked to improved academic performance and social development in children. These skills are highly predictive of reading comprehension abilities. Narrative intervention promotes explicit instruction of targeted language skills, including vocabulary, sentence structure, and morphology, while fostering comprehension and social-emotional development.
Ashton and Meg focused on:
- Understanding what a narrative is, including:
- Types of narratives
- Narrative development across ages and stages
- Microstructure and macrostructure
- Identifying challenges faced by students with language disorders and difficulties in producing and comprehending narratives.
- Exploring the impact of narrative development in the classroom.
- Applying discussed strategies and resources to support narrative development in students with language disorders and difficulties.
Reading Comprehension
1 May 2024
Presenters
Tracey Huttley (Inclusion – Specialist Educator) and Athena Panagopoulos (Senior Speech Language Pathologist) presented the webinar Reading Comprehension.
Key learning objectives:
- Understanding Language Disorder (LD) and the impacts on literacy development
- How do we learn to read? Thinking about word decoding and language comprehension
- Frameworks behind effective reading instruction (Science of Reading)
- Strategies to support language comprehension in the classroom
We strongly recommend watching Language Disorder Australia’s previous webinar Understanding and Supporting Students with Reading Difficulties as a precursor to this webinar.
Language Disorder and DLD
7 March 2024
Presenters
Jordan Wellington (Senior Speech Pathologist) and Meg MacKenzie (Speech Pathologist) discussed:
- The difference between Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and Language Disorder associated with other biomedical conditions.
- The prevalence of Language Disorder, as well as the risk factors, co-occurring difficulties and outcomes that can be associated with its presence.
- The different ways that Language Disorder can present in the classroom
- The next steps for providing support to students if Language Disorder is suspected.
Supporting Transitions within the School Day
14 November 2023
Presenters
Tracey Huttley (Inclusion – Specialist Educator) and Taryn van der Westhuizen (Senior Occupational Therapist) discussed:
- What are transitions and why are they important?
- What happens when students have difficulties with transitions?
- What are different types of transitions?
- What skills are needed for successful transitions?
- Strategies to support successful transitions.
Sensory Regulation in the Classroom
30 August 2023
Presenters
Elyce Mitchell (Senior Occupational Therapist) and Nicole Lindgren (Inclusion Specialist Educator) presented this webinar, exploring the following topics:
- What is sensory processing and what are the 8 senses?
- What is the link between Language Disorder, academic outcomes and sensory processing?
- What do difficulties with sensory processing look like in the classroom?
- Strategies to support students’ sensory processing and regulation.
Social Problem Solving and Conflict Resolution
19 July 2023
Presenters
In this webinar, April Carroll (Provisional Psychologist) and Meg MacKenzie (Speech Language Pathologist) discussed:
- The importance of social problem solving for student development
- The vital role of social problem solving in fostering emotional development and interpersonal relationships among students
- The specific challenges faced by students with language disorder and language difficulties in social conflict situations
- A range of practical strategies and resources to cultivate social problem solving skills for students
- Real-life case studies that showcase the application of strategies and resources
Morphology
15 June 2023
Presenters
Elizabeth Lorraway (Senior Speech Language Pathologist) and Hayley Symington (Speech Language Pathologist) presented an informative webinar on Morphology.
Throughout the webinar they presented strategies to support students’ skills and development of key morphological structures.
Executive Function Skills
03 May 2023
Presenters
Edwina Crowe (Inclusion-Specialist Educator) and Emma Reid (Occupational Therapist) presented the webinar Executive Function Skills.
Throughout this webinar they presented strategies to support students in developing executive function skills in the classroom.
Using Effective Communication in the Classroom
20 April 2023
Presenters
Speech Language Pathologists Jessica Casale and Lyndsay Miller presented the webinar Using Effective Communication in the Classroom.
Throughout this webinar they provided strategies to support students with both receptive and expressive language difficulties and discuss how these strategies can be implemented in the classroom to support a students learning.
Understanding and Supporting Students with Reading Difficulties
23 February 2023
Presenters
Sheri Adams (Specialist Educator) and Athena Panagopoulos (Senior Speech Pathologist) presented the webinar Understanding and Supporting Students with Reading Difficulties. The session covered:
- Understanding Language Disorder (LD) and the impacts on literacy development
- The complexities of learning to read
- The 6 key components of effective, evidence-based reading instruction
- The presentation of reading difficulties
- Classroom strategies
Resilience and Task Perseverance
12 October 2022
Presenters
Provisional Psychologist April Carroll and Occupational Therapist Emma Reid covered the following topics:
- The importance of resilience and task perseverance for academic success
- How to identify low resilience and task perseverance in the classroom
- Further strategies to build emotional regulation skills and risk-taking in the classroom
- Discussing and unpacking a case study to apply strategies learned throughout webinar
Transitioning to High School
16 August 2022
Presenters
Inclusion-specialist educator Edwina Crowe and occupational therapist Karen Gibson covered the following topics:
- What is a transition?
- What impact does transitioning have on students?
- What makes a successful transition to high school?
- Strategies to support a successful transition to high school.
Sentence Structure
3 August 2022
Presenters
Senior Speech Pathologists Athena Panagapoulos and Elizabeth Lorraway covered the following topics:
- What is sentence structure?
- The importance of verbal sentence structure as a precursor to written sentence structure
- Strategies to increase sentence length, complexity and the variety of word classes used
Supporting EAL/D Students
20 July 2022
Presenters
Senior Speech Pathologists Athena Panagapoulos and Elizabeth Lorraway covered the following topics:
- Who are our EALD students?
- What are some considerations around EALD communication?
- Strategies to support EALD students including those with Language Disorder in the classroom
Building Self-Esteem and Confidence
18 May 2022
Presenters
Psychologist April Quezada and Speech Pathologist Elizabeth Lorraway covered the following topics:
- How self-esteem and confidence impact engagement in the curriculum.
- The relationship between Language Disorder and reduced confidence/self-esteem.
- How to identify low self-esteem and confidence in students.
- Strategies for supporting students’ confidence and self-esteem in the classroom.
Multi-Modal Communication
11 May 2022
Presenters
Speech Pathologists Jessica Casale and Lyndsay Miller covered the following topics:
- Develop an understanding of multi-modal communication
- Highlight the benefits and common misconceptions of using multi-modal communication.
- Discuss a range of multi-modal communication approaches.
- Provide practical strategies for integrating and supporting multi-modal communication in the classroom.
Fine Motor Skill Development
4 May 2022
Presenters
Senior Physiotherapist Megan Simmonds and Senior Occupational Therapist Elyce Mitchell covered the following topics:
- The importance of fine motor skills in the classroom
- The link between fine motor skills and learning
- How to identify difficulties
- Fun and effective fine motor strategies for the classroom
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