What is a Language Disorder?

A language disorder is a problem with understanding and/or using spoken, written, and/or other symbol systems (e.g., gestures, sign language). The disorder may involve 1) the form of language (phonology, morphology, and syntax), 2) the content of the language (semantics), and/or the function of language in communication (pragmatics) in any combination.

When a person is unable to produce speech sounds correctly or fluently, or has problems with his or her voice, then he or she has a speech disorder. Difficulties pronouncing sounds, or articulation disorders, and stuttering are examples of speech disorders. When a person has trouble understanding others (receptive language), or sharing thoughts, ideas, and feelings completely (expressive language), then he or she has a language disorder. A stroke can result in aphasia, or a language disorder.

The work aims to bring current (and future) advances in developmental cognitive science and language disorders to the assessment and treatment of developmental speech and language disorders. We conduct behavioural experiments, from a multidisciplinary perspective, to determine the acquisition, use, understanding and breakdown of language - particularly "Specific Language Impairment" (SLI) - and its relation to other cognitive capacities.

Approximately 3 - 10% of all school-age children have expressive language disorder. The causes of this disorder may vary, or may be unknown. Cerebral damage and malnutrition may cause some cases -- perhaps in combination with genetic factors.

Speech and language disorders refer to problems in communication and related areas such as oral motor function. These delays and disorders range from simple sound substitutions to the inability to understand or use language or use the oral-motor mechanism for functional speech and feeding. Some causes of speech and language disorders include hearing loss, neurological disorders, brain injury, mental retardation, drug abuse, physical impairments such as cleft lip or palate, and vocal abuse or misuse. Frequently, however, the cause is unknown.

Direct therapeutic intervention for speech and language difficulties, together with and psychotherapy, if necessary, are the best approaches to this type of language disorder. Therefore, learning disorders are treated with specialized educational methods. In addition to special classroom instruction at school, students with learning disorders frequently benefit from individualized tutoring which focuses on their specific learning problem.

language disorder is an impairment in the ability to understand and/or use words in context, both verbally and nonverbally. Some characteristics of language disorders include improper use of words and their meanings, inability to express ideas, inappropriate grammatical patterns, reduced vocabulary and inability to follow directions. One or a combination of these characteristics may occur in children who are affected by language learning disabilities or developmental language delay. Children may hear or see a word but not be able to understand its meaning.

There are many language disorders that require clinical care by a physician or other healthcare professional. Listed in the directory below are some of the conditions, for which we have provided a brief overview. If you cannot find the condition in which you are interested, please visit the Otolaryngology Online Resources page in this Web site for an Internet World Wide Web address that may contain additional information on that topic.

Language therapy is the best method to remedy this type of disorder. The goal of this therapy is to increase the number of phrases a child can use. This is done by using block-building techniques and speech therapy.