Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) are at increased risk of mental health difficulties. I will discuss evidence that this may be partly because language supports development of emotion recognition and regulation skills, which in turn support mental health. Data are from the Surrey Communication and Language in Education Study (SCALES); a 7-year prospective study of children’s language development. We found that language ability at the start of primary school (age 5-6 years) was related to objective measures of emotion recognition and regulation at the end of primary school (age 10-12 years). I will discuss the implications of these findings for promoting mental health in children and young people with neurodevelopmental conditions that affect language development.