Receptive and Expressive Language Disorders

Language disorders, or developmental language impairments (DLI) “are defined as the impairment or deviant development of comprehension and/or use of a spoken, written and/or other symbol system” (Bacon, C.K., & Wilcox, M.J., 2011, p. 308). “The disorder may impair form (phonology, morphology, and syntax), content (semantics) and/or the function of language (pragmatics) (Bacon, 2011, p. 308). Children with a language impairment do not develop language skills that are normal for their age or equal to their peer groups. For example, normal developing children say their first words around their first birthday. Children with DLI don’t say their first words until around 16-18 months of age (Bacon, 2011, p. 310). According to Bacon (2011), some of the observations made from children with DLI as compared to their peers are as follows. On top of their first word delay, they acquire language at an overall slower rate, have trouble developing an initial vocabulary, and also struggle with word combinations. Their “prelinguistic” vocalizations, such as crying or babbling, are limited in variation (wanting to be fed, wanting to be changed), and they don’t gesture to wanted items. Also, children with DLI contrast in the joint attention and joint reference function expressed in early communication. They have poor receptive vocabulary and use a reduced number of phonemes/syllables, which makes their speech very limited. Going along with poor receptive skills, they have language-processing problems that make it difficult for them to retrieve words. By the ages of 3-5, normal developing children have mastered verb phrases, while children with DLI have great difficulty with this part of speech development. To identify a problem or disorder, the spe...

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...n with mixed receptive and expressive problems have symptoms of both disorders. Symptoms include the previously stated expressive language disorder symptoms, “as well as difficulties understanding words, sentences and specific types of words, such as special terms ‘here, there, under’, and temporal words like ‘today, yesterday, then, now’” (Culatta, 2011, p. 343).

Works Cited

Bacon, C. K., & Wilcox M. J. (2011). Developmental Language Impairment During the Preschool Years. In Anderson N.B., & Shames G. H. (Ed.), Human Communication Disorders: an Introduction (8th ed.) (pp. 308-312). Upper Saddle, NJ: Pearson Education Inc.

Culatta, B., & Wiig, E. (2011). Language Disabilities in School-Age children and Youth. In Anderson N.B., & Shames G. H. (Ed.), Human Communication Disorders: an Introduction (8th ed.) (pp. 338-342). Upper Saddle, NJ: Pearson Education Inc.