A newly published study, which explores the impact that the pandemic may have had on the youngest children, makes for concerning reading.

The study, by Louise Tracey and colleagues, draws on surveys and data collected from teachers and parents and highlights a number of issues. It seems that the youngest generation might have been more affected by the pandemic than we previously thought, with both parents and teachers reporting lower levels of language and attention.

What this means is that the children who started school in September 2021 may not have been prepared to access the curriculum at the point we would normally expect them to.

Those children whose learning isn’t developing in line with expectations would usually be picked up before they start school, but during the pandemic, the restrictions placed on health visitors and other early years professionals meant that many slipped through the net.

Only once these children have reached school have their challenges become clear - none more so than those with speech, language and communication difficulties.

Given an appropriate, responsive environment and effective opportunities to learn, most of these children will make fast progress. But for some - around two to three pupils in every class of thirty - progress will be much, much slower.

About 7 per cent of the general population have a neurodevelopmental condition called Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). This is defined as a difficulty in learning and using language.

There are a number of theories about what underlies the exact difficulties a child with DLD has, including those based on auditory processing and working memory problems. The testing and development of these theories is ongoing and is an important part of the fine-tuning of clinical assessments and interventions.

One new explanation, developed by researcher Sam Jones and colleagues at the ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development (LuCiD), recently showed that apparent working memory capacity deficits - widely considered a cause of DLD - may stem from long-term speech memory problems attributable to atypical auditory processing.

The consequence of this is that not only do affected children find it hard to learn language, but they may also find it hard to learn anything else through language.

They are working so hard at making sense of the speech they encounter that their (otherwise normal-functioning) working memory becomes thinly spread. This will impact learning to read (phonics is hard if you can’t distinguish the sounds in words), learning maths (we use words to describe concepts and relationships) and even behaviour and attention.

It seems likely that many of the children whose difficulties were not picked up during the pandemic may have DLD. But what can schools do to help them?

• Are e-manipulatives the future in the maths classroom?
• How to teach spelling patterns
• County lines: how can teachers help?

Thankfully, we already know what can help: talk, and plenty of it.

“Serve and return” interactions are powerful tools - the more these interactions are used, the better. It is also important to use talk that is clear to the child and helps to amplify the meaning of the language being used. For example, talk around a book is great, as this supports comprehension.

Activities that help children tune in to the sounds in speech, developing phonological awareness - such as the type of activities found in Letters and Sounds Phase One - can also be really helpful.

In addition, small-group language interventions such as Talk Boost or the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) may be useful - and, of course, a close working relationship with the local speech and language therapy team is essential.

As we continue to understand the impact of the pandemic, it is becoming clear that we need to be vigilant when it comes to looking for both predictable and unpredictable difficulties.

Paying attention to speech and language theory can help us to make sure that more children aren’t slipping through the cracks.