Developmental Language Disorders Day: Posters Provide Information

10/14/2025

Poster exhibition for the Developmental Language Disorders Day on Friday, 17 October: A team from the Institute of Special Education at the University of Würzburg has put it together.

Excerpt from the Würzburg advertising poster for the Developmental Language Disorders Awareness Day. (Image: Mit Fotomaterial von Pixabay)

Children acquire language very easily, almost as if by chance. In the first three to four years of life, they develop the most important skills to be able to communicate well with others.

However, almost eight per cent of all children show abnormalities in their language development. Experts then speak of developmental language disorders (DLD). This means that language develops differently than usual - and this can lead to problems in everyday life, at school and in contact with other people. Affected children therefore need professional support.

To raise awareness of this problem, "Speech and Language Development Disorders Day" has been held worldwide on the third Friday in October every year since 2017 (in German: Tag der Sprachentwicklungsstörungen SES). This year, it will be celebrated on Friday, 17 October, with the motto "You can't see DLD - listen, I'll explain DLD to you!".

Many Students Have Contributed

With a poster exhibition, the Chair of Special Education and Therapy in Language and Communication Disorders at the University of Würzburg is also helping to raise public awareness of this common yet unknown disorder.

In a seminar, special education students discussed the topic of DLD with Professor Carina Lüke and Dr Kathrin Heeg, who hold the chair, and created the posters. Chair staff Dr Verena Frank, Lisa Greulich, André Grandl and Dr Daniela Eiband were also involved in the planning and production. Student Theresa Gilmer developed the style of the posters and actively supported the graphic realisation.

Different Aspects of SES

The result is eight informative posters in German language on very different aspects of DLD: interesting facts about the milestones of language development and the disorder DLD, possible risk factors for DLD, long-term development and effects on other areas of development such as learning and emotional-social development and the topic of DLDin multilingualism. There are also two posters showing concrete measures for support, one in everyday life and one in the classroom.

The posters will be presented to the public for the first time on Friday, 17 October, from 14:30 to 16:00. The exhibition will be held at the Maria Stern Speech Therapy School at Felix-Dahn-Straße 11 in the Sanderau district of Würzburg. The posters can be seen there up to and including Friday, 24 October.