Language Disorders

Definition for Speech

HOW we use our voice to communicate our thoughts.

It consists of:

• Articulation: ability to produce specific sounds

• Voice: quality of sound produced, consists of pitch, loudness, and resonance

• fluency: aka stuttering, smoothness and rhythm of speech

Speech → articulation, voice, fluency

Language → content, form, use

Definiton for Language

consists of socially shared roles (grammar, semantics, etc) for how we use words to communicate our thoughts.

consists of:

• receptive: understanding language, including following directions and pointing to pictures

• expressive: how we use and combine words to share thoughts, ideas, and communicate wants and needs → through speech, writing, gesture, nonverbal communication

• pragmatic: social use of language consisting of knowing what to say, how to say it, and when to say it.

Literacy

ability to read and write → also ability to locate, evaluate, use, and communicate using text, visual, audio, and video sources.

5 Domains of Language

Semantics

the meaning of words → often determined from figurative language and inferential meaning

• lexicon → the complete vocabulary of a language

• individual words

• utterance

• word relationships (i.e., antonyms, synonyms)

Syntax

rules for words are sequenced into phrases and sentences → aka grammar

• Increased sentence elaboration:

  • simple: subject-verb-object (Sam ate oranges.)

  • more complex: subject-verb-object-adverb (The boy ate an apple in the kitchen.) and subject-auxiliary-verb-adverb (He always eats neatly.)

  • compound and complex sentence structures

Morphology

Morphemes are the smallest linguistic unit with meaning.

• bound morphemes: (-s, -ed, -est)

cannot stand alone and still convey meaning → usually prefixes, suffixes or inflections

• free morphemes or unbound morphemes: (boy)

base words that can stand alone

Exp:

“Unlikely” (3 morphemes) → un- (bound), -like- (free), -ly (bound)

“I need to go now” (5 morphemes) → I (f) need (f) to (f) go (f) now (f)

Phonology

Rules that govern the combination of speech sounds in a language. The rules of sound organization and sequence.

• phonemes in a lang; indicates meaning change (pat vs. bat)

• order of sounds that can go together “ntat”

• refined and mastered by 5 years of age

Pragmatics

Rules for governing the use of language in context.

Elements included:

• communicative intents or functions

• turn taking

• topic maintenance

• presupposition (implicit assumption about the world or background relaying to an utterance whose truth is taken for granted)

• identification and repaire of communication breakdown

• non-verbal signals

• appropriate code: style of communication for context/partner

Relationship between comprehension (receptive) and production (expressive)…

• Children comprehend before they produce language.

• Most adults can comprehend more than they can produce.

  • e.g., reading the NYT but not repeat it over to someone else

Receptive Language

Decoding the words and sentences → taking the string of auditory information and deriving meaning.

• must apply rules to the signals meaning

• understanding what someone else says

Modalities include:

• listening

• reading

• seeing

Expressive Language

aka production → encoding: taking abstract ideas and mapping them into words

Modalities:

• speaking

• writing

  • writing based on spoken language

• signing

Language Disorders for toddlers and preschoolers typically have difficulty:

achieving important language milestones

Language Disorders for school-age typically have difficulty:

academic skills that rely on language proficiency

Developmental Causes of Language Disorders:

• Developmental Language Disorder (DLD): Condition where children have significant difficulties with language development from a young age, despite having typical hearing and cognitive ability.

• Intellectual Disability: Cognitive delays can impact language development

• ASD: language difficulties are a core feature of autism

• Genetic conditions: conditions like down syndrome or Fragile X syndrome can affect language development

• Hearing Loss: difficulty hearing can impact a child’s ability to learn and use language.

Acquired Causes After Birth:

• Brain Injury:

  • TBI: cause LD like aphasia → affecting lang expression and comprehension

  • Stroke → lack of blood flow to brain causes language impairments

• Environmental Causes:

  • lack of language exposure

  • neglect or abuse → childhood trauma can impact language development

  • poor nutrition → malnutrition can affect overall development including language

NOTE: IN MANY CASES, THE EXCT CAUSE OF LANGUAGE IMPAORMENT MAY NOT BE IDENTIFIED

Prelinguistic Stage: (Birth-12 months)