Everyday communication involves frequent switching between input and output modalities, i.e. perceiving language auditorily or visually and responding vocally or manually. This is particularly important for children with developmental language disorders (DLD), who rely on multimodal communication more often and for longer than typically developed (TD) children. In adults and TD children, modality switching is influenced by modality compatibility, with better performance for switching between compatible modality combinations (auditory-vocal, visual-manual), than switching between incompatible combinations (auditory-manual, visual-vocal). Modality switching of children with DLD has not yet been investigated or compared to TD children. In two experiments, 128 children with DLD and TD children (50% each) performed a semantic categorization while switching between compatible and incompatible modality combinations. The experiments differed only in the type of stimuli (more verbal versus less verbal). In Experiment 1, 64 children (MAge = 8.7 years) were presented with nonverbal sounds and line drawings. In Experiment 2 with another 64 children (MAge = 8.8 years), stimuli consisted of spoken words and gesture videos. Responses involved either pressing response keys or saying 'yes' or 'no'. Data of Experiment 1 revealed no significant group differences: both groups showed better performance in compatible than in incompatible conditions. In Experiment 2, modality compatibility influenced mixing performance in TD children, but not in children with DLD. These findings show that modality switching in children with DLD is influenced by modality compatibility, but also suggest modality-specific differences in language processing between children with and without DLD when processing verbal stimuli.