Engage with Developmental Language Disorder
In collaboration with
ANNOUNCEMENT!
Engage with DLD (E-DLD) is currently seeking Early Career Researchers (ECRs) and Early-Career Speech and Language Therapists/Pathologists (SLTs/SLPs) who are passionate about Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and interested in gaining academic experience.
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About the Opportunity
This is a voluntary, formal two-year affiliation with the E-DLD project. ECRs will take on tasks requiring approximately 30 minutes to a few hours each month. Opportunities include contributing to public engagement initiatives or supporting the operational running of the project. This role offers a valuable chance to build your academic CV while working with a collaborative international team.
Who You Will Work With
Successful applicants will work directly with:
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Dr Michelle St Clair (University of Bath)
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Professor Jenny Gibson (University of Cambridge)
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Professor Nicola Botting (City St George’s, University of London)
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Professor Suze Leitão (Curtin University)
Please note: This is a voluntary, unpaid position as the Engage with DLD project is unfunded.
Application Process
To apply, please email the following to E-DLD@bath.ac.uk:
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A current CV
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A 1–2 page cover letter explaining:
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Why are you interested in joining the Engage with DLD team
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What will you bring to the project
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For further information or any questions, please contact E-DLD@bath.ac.uk.
DLD researchers: Let's work together
Although there are quite a few wonderful projects raising awareness of DLD, a project to help build research capacity was missing from the mix.
E-DLD fills this gap and helps build capacity for high quality research into the causes, treatment and consequences of DLD.
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We are creating a database of families and individuals affected by DLD. The aim is two-fold:
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To provide families with up to date scientific information about DLD in an easy to understand format
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To help facilitate recruitment for research projects into DLD.
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We are happy to advertise any DLD related research projects to our E-DLD members. You will need to clearly demonstrate ethical approval from a suitable ethics review board and complete our application forms below.
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We would love for you to get involved! Please consider distributing our recruitment materials if you are recruiting children, adolescents or adults with DLD.
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See below:
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​Want to keep updated with E-DLD and receive our quarterly newsletter?
Who are the E-DLD members?
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As of January 2025, we have over 300 E-DLD parents (parents of children with DLD are under 16) and over 75 adults or individuals with DLD over 16.
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For the children and parent E-DLD members:
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Mean age of the children is 8.6 years​
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Approximately 60% of the children are male
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84% of children are monolingual
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86% have siblings (we have data on whether they are older or younger)
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72% are from the UK - internationally 19 other non-UK countries are represented
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83% of those who report official diagnoses, report DLD (sometimes with other diagnoses)
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Only 2% report a diagnosis that rules out DLD (e.g., ASD; we don't send research emails to these individuals)
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The majority of the other reported diagnoses reported reflect a diagnosis of DLD just using other terminology
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About 10% of parents don't fill in this section of the sign up survey
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We send yearly survey invitations out to all of our E-DLD members ​​​
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This will eventually help form an open access database showing children's development across time. ​
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Watch our webinar explaining how we work with researchers:
Share your research
Have you published research on DLD? We'd love to add your findings to our research summaries.
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Step 1: Download our template
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Step 2: Summarise your study and email it to us
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Step 3: Our team will review your summary.
We may make some tweaks to the language to ensure it can be easily understood by all readers.
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Step 4: When we have a free slot, we'll post your summary on our website. We'll also create a Twitter thread to publicise this work.
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Help us reach more E-DLD members
Please consider passing along this information leaflet or poster to either existing families or individuals with DLD you are working with or to new participants you are recruiting.
Please don't forget about E-DLD when you're recruiting for future projects! Remember, you may need to factor this into your ethics applications.
Share your research with the community
If you have published research about DLD, consider creating summaries that are accessible for the DLD community.
We have created guidelines and templates to help researchers explain their research to people with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD).
You can share your research summaries with E-DLD by following these steps:
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Upload your video and audio summaries via an online large file transfer service (e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox, CloudStor , WeTransfer)​.
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We will review your summaries and might provide some feedback before we share them on the E-DLD website and social media.
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Email us (e-dld@bath.ac.uk) with your written summary (word file version), infographics (PowerPoint file), the links to your video and audio, and the PDF of your published journal article. ​​
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If there are any changes to your summary or research, please get back in touch at e-dld@bath.ac.uk with the new version​
Contact us
E-DLD team
Department of Psychology, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath, BA2 7AY