More than a million children and young people who struggle to talk and understand words could be left behind under the government’s planned special educational needs and disabilities reforms, a charity has warned.

Speech and Language UK has published a report raising concerns that the plans have “failed to take the opportunity to talk specifically about children and young people with developmental language disorder (DLD) at all”.

The report, The missing million, warns that the government’s plans and consultation document do not include any examples of reasonable adjustments for this group or contain plans to recruit or train any more speech and language therapists or specialist speech and language teachers.

Through its reforms, the Department for Education wants to create a more inclusive mainstream system for pupils with SEND and has committed to ensuring every secondary school has an inclusion base, with equivalent places created in primary schools.

But Speech and Language UK has raised concern that it has not given any examples of inclusion bases for pupils with DLD.

‘Blind spot’ in SEND reforms

The charity’s report says that, while the government’s schools White Paper “refers broadly to speech, language and communication, it does not clearly identify or protect the two children in every classroom with DLD”.

It says that it has been estimated that 1,356,597 children and young people aged between 0 and 25 have DLD.

Speech and Language UK chief executive Jane Harris said: “The government is right to say it wants an inclusive SEND system that enables all children to thrive and achieve. But our report shows there is still a major blind spot at the heart of these reforms.

“One of the biggest groups of children and young people with SEND is not mentioned once in this document and has never been talked about by the secretary of state.

“If ministers are serious about inclusion, they must stop leaving children with DLD hidden inside broad language and instead make sure they are clearly recognised and properly designed for before the consultation closes.”

The consultation on SEND reforms closes on 18 May.

Understanding and adapting for DLD

The charity’s report calls on the government to talk more about how school and early years staff can adapt their ways of working to help children with DLD.

It says the DfE could do this through the new SEND teacher training it is creating for schools this year, and in new reasonable adjustment guidance for schools.

It also calls for DfE officials and Ofsted inspectors to receive training so that everyone understands DLD.

The charity adds that the government needs to train and recruit enough speech and language therapists - and specialist language teachers - so that children with DLD get the support they need to learn every day.

The government’s SEND reforms include plans for an expansion of inclusion bases, and it is planning to move to a three-tier system of additional support for pupils with SEND.

These are targeted and targeted plus support, which will be delivered through mainstream schools, and a specialist tier of support, which will be delivered in both mainstream and special schools.

The government is planning to introduce national inclusion standards and a series of specialist provision packages that will underpin the support pupils on the specialist tier receive.

Education, health and care plans are being retained under the new system but will be reserved for those who are on the specialist tier of support.

It is also creating a new experts at hand service to give schools more access to external professional support.

A DfE spokesperson said: ”Our once-in-a-generation SEND reforms are transforming the system so that every child, including all of those with speech, language and communication needs, receives the right support, in their local school, at the earliest possible stage.

“We’re investing £1.8 billion to widen access to advice, guidance and support from specialists, like speech and language therapists, in every community up and down the country - enabling specialists to work directly with schools to provide needs-led support that reaches children faster and earlier.

”We’re also rolling out a comprehensive training package for all teachers on SEND, as well as investing £40 million to boost the educational psychology and speech and language therapy workforce - ensuring a pipeline of trained specialists to support children with a range of needs.”