Language Impairment

communication cycle

communicative intentions

- conceptualization of what one wants to sa

language endcoding

- Selection of semantic, syntactic and phonological

structures

motor programming

- Selection of motor activities (for lips, tongue, vocal

folds

motor execution

- Carrying out movements of articulator

speech

Result: audible, intelligible speech

speech processing

Conversion of sound waves in the ear from

mechanical vibrations into nervous impulses

(these are carried to auditory centers in the brain

speech perception

Recognition of nervous impulses as speech

sounds (speech vs. non-speech sounds)

language decoding

- Analysis of phonological, syntactic and semantic

structures

- Attribution of significance to utterance

Result: Communicative intentions (+ additional

pragmatic processing

expressive vs receptive language disorder

- Production vs. Understanding of utterances

- Possible mismatch in receptive and expressive skills

- Expressive disorders usually occur later: secondary to the receptive impairment (Honbolygó et al. 2006)

- Receptive: often unrecognized

speech disorder

→ motor programming and motor execution

Example: Stuttering, verbal dyspraxia, etc.

→ Inability to program and execute articulatory movements

language disorder

anguage encoding and decoding

Example: Aphasia, DLD, etc.

→ Inability to encode or decode aspects of language (e.g. syntax, semantics)

developmental language disorder

Speech and language skills are not acquired

normally during the developmental period

1) Due to anatomical defect in pre-natal period OR

neurological insults / brain damage in perinatal

period OR neurological damage / cerebral palsy

in post-natal period

2) No evident reason (etiology unclear)

Examples: ASD, DLD

aquired language disorder

Initially intact speech and language skills

Disruption due to e.g. disease, trauma/injury

affecting the anatomical and neurological structures

that are integral to communication (e.g. multiple

sclerosis, Parkinson‘s disease, Alzheimer‘s disease),

head injury, stroke, infection (e.g. meningitis), etc.

Examples: Aphasia, Landau-Kleffner syndrome

ASD - social communication

Deficits in social communication are a defining characteristic

➢ discourse processing, narrative and referential communication

→ Impaired Theory of Mind

Understanding pragmatics, or generally “pragmatic language

ASD theory of mind

awareness that

people have mental states (such

as knowledge, beliefs, desires, and

intentions) which may differ from

one‘s own

ASD pragmatic language

“aspects of language in context that

go beyond what is explicitly stated and includes

inferencing, figurative language, scalar implicatures

DLD etiology

Breakdown in the phonetic/phonology domain alongside problems in grammatical processing

But also: specific to language

Other aspects of development (e.g. motor skills) not affected, non-verbal IQ ok

No known etiology (physiological causes

DLD sound inventories

Phonetics/Phonology

• Smaller sound inventories overall

• Higher degrees of omission of consonants (increasing as a function of position in a word)

• Simpler syllable types

DLD overregularisation

Tense marking less developed

• Past tense over-regularisation (I drinked, he falled) (higher production and acceptance rates)

• Greater use and acceptance of infinitive forms in finite positions (he fall of)

• Greater acceptance of finite form errors in VP complement positions (e.g. he made him fell)

• Less use of functional categories

DLD word retrieval

Reduced learning of novel words

• Words are vulnerable to retrieval failure (Wortfindungsstörungen)

• Don‘t know or non-specific responses in naming age appropriate objects

• Overgeneralizations: thing, stuff