What is a Language Disorder?
Similar to speech disorders, language difficulty is also known by many names:
A Receptive Language Disorder is when a child has difficulty understanding language. They have trouble comprehending when they listen or read. Problems with receptive language skills usually begin before age 4.
An Expressive Language Disorder is when a child has difficulty talking or expressing his/her ideas. This difficulty in talking is not because of "how" they are speaking or saying the sounds (articulation), but because of "what" they are saying (form, content, and function).
Children can have a receptive language delay, an expressive language delay, or both. A typical rule of thumb is that you comprehend more than you can speak. It is difficult to generalize about children with language disorders because every child is different.
But a child with a language disorder may have some of the following problems:
Language difficulty can be hiding behind many other problems that often make the child look like they are just a "behavior problem," or that they need "more discipline," or they need an "attitude" change! Many children get labeled this way without knowing the problem behind it. On the flip side though, many children with language disorders become "trouble-makers" in class because they are off-task, distracting others, bullying, being silly, lacking help, and struggling to succeed.
Here are some of the behaviors often mistaken for a "bad student" or a "not trying student" that can indicate an underlying language impairment:
Language is a code that we learn to use in order to communicate ideas and express our wants and needs. Reading, writing, speaking, and gestures/facial expressions are all forms of language. The language code is made up of rules that we all share and must follow to communicate well. There are rules for:
Form
What Causes It?
Most children begin developing language naturally at birth. Hearing, seeing,understanding, and remembering are all skills that are necessary for learning language. Children also need to be able to form speech physically. Despite having all of these abilities, some children don't acquire language normally. Language disorders are different than overall delayed language.
With delayed language, the child develops speech and language in the same way as other children, but later than expected. With language disorders, speech and language do not develop normally. The child may have some language skills, but not others. Or the way the skills develop is different than usual. Most of the time, the causes of language problems are unknown and is called a developmental language disorder.It is not usually due to a lack of intelligence. Some of the known causes include:
Since communication is language and it is in everything we do, I would say almost everything is affected. Of course language difficulty doesn’t affect your physical development or ability to eat, etc., but since we communicate everywhere, all aspects of a child’s life are affected.
The biggest impact is in school. Children with these disorders have a very hard time in school. It is a fast-paced environment with very little one-on-one instruction in a noisy, distracting atmosphere. Following multi-step directions, reading, writing, and answering questions are the primary means of teaching and performing in class. Considering that a child with language difficulty has trouble in all these areas,it is no wonder that the classroom can be a very confusing place for these children.
Communication skills are at the heart of the education experience. A Receptive Language Disorder (not understanding language) makes comprehending and following along in class difficult. Then add an Expressive Language Disorder (difficulty expressing language) and you have a child who is unable to share what they know or think or feel.
They may not have appropriate language structure to make words into sentences and sentences into paragraphs. They may say the wrong word when they try to answer a question in class and get laughed at for the answer and they don’t even know why. Or even worse, get punished because the teacher thought that they were answering wrong on purpose to get attention.
They may not give enough information or be able to choose the information that they need to give because they can’t sort out what is or isn’t important. Combine these problems with difficulty in reading and writing and it makes meeting the classroom expectations almost impossible.
Social Skills (Pragmatics) are most definitely affected. Many of these children don’t know the unspoken rules of conversation and social interaction which most of us just do naturally.This causes inappropriate behavior with others that makes it difficult to make and keep friends. Teasing and bullying can be a big problem. And most seriously, academic failure combined with social failure causes low self-esteem and fear of more failure.
So as you can see.....language disorders affect E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G.
Luke B. "Language Disorders - Home Speech Home." 2011. 26 Jun. 2014 <http://www.home-speech-home.com/language-disorder.html>
Similar to speech disorders, language difficulty is also known by many names:
- language delay
- language disability
- language impairment
- specific language impairment
A Receptive Language Disorder is when a child has difficulty understanding language. They have trouble comprehending when they listen or read. Problems with receptive language skills usually begin before age 4.
An Expressive Language Disorder is when a child has difficulty talking or expressing his/her ideas. This difficulty in talking is not because of "how" they are speaking or saying the sounds (articulation), but because of "what" they are saying (form, content, and function).
Children can have a receptive language delay, an expressive language delay, or both. A typical rule of thumb is that you comprehend more than you can speak. It is difficult to generalize about children with language disorders because every child is different.
But a child with a language disorder may have some of the following problems:
- Started talking late
- Has a hard time following and/or giving directions
- Understanding questions is difficult (Example: Can't answer questions like who, what, where, when, why)
- Difficulty understanding jokes, double meanings, and abstract concepts
- Spoken language is simpler than their peers
- Limited vocabulary
- Incorrect grammar such as problems with pronouns (his/her), tense (goed/went), or plurals (mouses/mice)
- Has difficulty remembering words, including everyday ones like words in songs, nursery rhymes, days of the week, and people's names
- Uses non-specific words such as "stuff, thing" a lot
- Tells and writes stories that are disjointed (not connected well) and missing details
- Has trouble breaking language into its parts (Example: finding words in sentences or sounds in words)
- Has a hard time with social skills like taking turns, staying on topic, or saying when they don't understand
- Does not start conversations very often, quiet and less talkative than peers
- Phonological Awareness skills are weak
Language difficulty can be hiding behind many other problems that often make the child look like they are just a "behavior problem," or that they need "more discipline," or they need an "attitude" change! Many children get labeled this way without knowing the problem behind it. On the flip side though, many children with language disorders become "trouble-makers" in class because they are off-task, distracting others, bullying, being silly, lacking help, and struggling to succeed.
Here are some of the behaviors often mistaken for a "bad student" or a "not trying student" that can indicate an underlying language impairment:
- Gets distracted easily
- Slower to answer questions
- Slower to put thoughts together to express their ideas
- Slower to follow directions (Example: When 2-3 instructions are given, they are still processing the first instruction so they automatically miss the next instruction)
- Does not plan well
- Difficulty predicting and inferring or guessing what happened and what will happen next
- Has a hard time reading so the meaning is usually missed
- Disorganized behavior and "tuned off"
- School performance is weak and has lots of gaps
- Has a hard time listening in background noise
- Lacks permanence in skills and knowledge (Example: Knows something one day but doesn't know it the next day)
- Doesn't transfer skills (Example: Can do something in one subject but not another)
- Relies on familiar things and routines, likes to stay in his/her comfort zone
Language is a code that we learn to use in order to communicate ideas and express our wants and needs. Reading, writing, speaking, and gestures/facial expressions are all forms of language. The language code is made up of rules that we all share and must follow to communicate well. There are rules for:
- Creating words from smaller units like sounds, letters
- Modifying the meaning of root words (Example: girl + s = girls, walk + ed = walked, teach + er = teacher, big + est= biggest)
- Combining words together in order for the correct meaning (Example: "I went to the store" not "I store to the went")
- Holding a conversation (Example: looking at the speaker, taking turns talking, etc.)
- Telling stories (Example: introduction, character, settings, sequential order)
- Using different forms of language for different purpose, listeners, and situations (Example: Saying "Could you help me please?" vs. "Help me!" when you need quicker help)
Form
- Phonology - is the rules for putting individual sounds together to make words such as spelling rules.
- Morphology - is the smallest meanings of words. For example: "ed" on the end of a word means it happened already, "ing" means it is happening right now.
- Syntax - is how words are arranged in order to make meaningful sentences. Grammar is a part of this.
- Semantics - is the meaning behind words in our language. A large vocabulary helps us communicate better.
- Pragmatics - is how we combine all the above parts of language to communicate appropriately in social situations. We all need social skills to succeed.
What Causes It?
Most children begin developing language naturally at birth. Hearing, seeing,understanding, and remembering are all skills that are necessary for learning language. Children also need to be able to form speech physically. Despite having all of these abilities, some children don't acquire language normally. Language disorders are different than overall delayed language.
With delayed language, the child develops speech and language in the same way as other children, but later than expected. With language disorders, speech and language do not develop normally. The child may have some language skills, but not others. Or the way the skills develop is different than usual. Most of the time, the causes of language problems are unknown and is called a developmental language disorder.It is not usually due to a lack of intelligence. Some of the known causes include:
- Hearing loss
- Neurological disorders
- Brain injury such as head trauma or stroke
- Mental retardation
- Drug abuse
- Syndrome
- Autism
Since communication is language and it is in everything we do, I would say almost everything is affected. Of course language difficulty doesn’t affect your physical development or ability to eat, etc., but since we communicate everywhere, all aspects of a child’s life are affected.
The biggest impact is in school. Children with these disorders have a very hard time in school. It is a fast-paced environment with very little one-on-one instruction in a noisy, distracting atmosphere. Following multi-step directions, reading, writing, and answering questions are the primary means of teaching and performing in class. Considering that a child with language difficulty has trouble in all these areas,it is no wonder that the classroom can be a very confusing place for these children.
Communication skills are at the heart of the education experience. A Receptive Language Disorder (not understanding language) makes comprehending and following along in class difficult. Then add an Expressive Language Disorder (difficulty expressing language) and you have a child who is unable to share what they know or think or feel.
They may not have appropriate language structure to make words into sentences and sentences into paragraphs. They may say the wrong word when they try to answer a question in class and get laughed at for the answer and they don’t even know why. Or even worse, get punished because the teacher thought that they were answering wrong on purpose to get attention.
They may not give enough information or be able to choose the information that they need to give because they can’t sort out what is or isn’t important. Combine these problems with difficulty in reading and writing and it makes meeting the classroom expectations almost impossible.
Social Skills (Pragmatics) are most definitely affected. Many of these children don’t know the unspoken rules of conversation and social interaction which most of us just do naturally.This causes inappropriate behavior with others that makes it difficult to make and keep friends. Teasing and bullying can be a big problem. And most seriously, academic failure combined with social failure causes low self-esteem and fear of more failure.
So as you can see.....language disorders affect E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G.
Luke B. "Language Disorders - Home Speech Home." 2011. 26 Jun. 2014 <http://www.home-speech-home.com/language-disorder.html>