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Clinical Forum
April 1991

Specific Language Impairment as a Clinical Category

Publication: Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools
Volume 22, Number 2
Pages 66-68

Abstract

Many children are diagnosed as "specifically language-impaired" principally on the basis of their low scores relative to the norm on language measures. Yet it is often assumed that such children must suffer from a subtle disruption or defect in some peripheral or central mechanism that is involved in language learning. In this paper, an alternative view is offered: Many of these children may simply be limited in language ability in much the same way that others may be poor in musical, spatial, or bodily kinesthetic abilities.

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REFERENCES

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.
Johnston, J. (1988). Specific language disorders in the child. In N. Lass, L. McReynolds, J. Northern, & D. Yoder (Eds.), Handbook of speech-language pathology and audiology (pp. 685–715). Toronto: B. C. Decker.
Leonard, L. (1987). Is specific language impairment a useful construct? In S. Rosenberg (Ed.)., Advances in applied psycholinguistics: Volume 1. Disorders of first-language development (pp. 1–39). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Leonard, L. (1989). Language learnability and specific language impairment in children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 10, 179–202.
Tallal, P., Ross, R., & Curtiss, S. (1989). Familial aggregation in specific language impairment. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 54, 167–173.
Tomblin, J. B. (1983). An examination of the concept of disorder in the study of language variation. Proceedings from the Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders, 4, 81–109.
Tomblin, J. B. (1989). Familial concentration of developmental language impairment. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 54, 287–295.
Weiner, P. (1985). The value of follow-up studies. Topics in Language Disorders, 39, 202–212.

Information & Authors

Information

Published In

Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools
Volume 22Number 2April 1991
Pages: 66-68

History

  • Received: Dec 14, 1989
  • Accepted: Feb 12, 1990
  • Published in issue: Apr 1, 1991

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Keywords

  1. specific language impairment
  2. language disorders
  3. child language

Authors

Affiliations

Laurence B. Leonard, Ph.D.
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN

Notes

Requests for reprints may be sent to Laurence B. Leonard, Ph.D., Department of Audiology and Speech Sciences, Heavilon Hall, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907.

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