MODELS OF

CHILD
LANGUAGE
DISORDERS
WHAT IS A LANGUAGE
DISORDER?
• A language disorder refers to
– Impaired comprehension and/or use of spoken, written,
and/or other symbol system.
• May impact:
– Form of language
– Content of language
– Function of language
TERMINOLOGY

Current Outdated or Inaccurate

• Language Disorder • Childhood Aphasia
• Language Impairment • Congenital Aphasia
• Language Learning Disability • Developmental Dysphasia
(LLD) • Language Deviance
• Specific Language Impairment
(SLI)
• Developmental Language Disorder
(DLD)
• Language Delay
 • About 1 in 5 children who are late talkers (late language
emergence) present with a language disorder later in
childhood
• Primary spoken language disorders are present in about 7
PREVALENCE AND to 10% of children over the age of 4
INCIDENCE • About 1 in 1,000 children exhibit mild to severe
intellectual disability associated with Down syndrome
• About 1 in 54 children have autism spectrum disorder
(ASD)
HOW ARE LANGUAGE DISORDERS
CLASSIFIED?

ETIOLOGY MANIFESTATIO SEVERITY

N
ETIOLOGY

Primary and • Primary- occurs in absence of any other disability

Secondary • Secondary- occurs in result of another disability
disorders

• Developmental- present from birth

Disorder Types • Acquired- acquired sometime after birth
 Spoken Language Reading and writing
Comprehension and
Expression

MANIFESTATION

Form, Content and Use

SEVERITY

Mild Moderate Severe Profound

 CLINICAL • Tenet 1: Child’s diagnostic category does
IMPLICATIONS FOR A not explain or predict language behavior
DESCRIPTIVE- • Tenet 2: Language description is more
important than prerequisite skills
DEVELOPMENTAL information
MODEL OF • Tenet 3: Finding the child’s place in the
sequence of normal development is the
DEVELOPMENTAL best way to decide what he/she should
LANGUAGE learn next in a language intervention
program
DISORDERS