Language Disabilities of Adolescents: Implications for Diagnosis and Remediation

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Summary: The present paper reviews and integrates the results of investigations of the language abilities of learning‐disabled adolescents by the author and her associates. The findings indicate that adolescents with specific learning disorders may demonstrate (1) cognitive‐semantic and linguistic processing deficits characterized by delays in the acquisition of linguistic rules and syntactic maturity and in cognitive and logical growth or (2) dysnomia characterized by verbal paraphasias and reduced speed and accuracy of retrieval of verbal labels, verbal associations and syntactic structures. Tests are discussed which may be used to assess the language processing and production abilities of adolescents. The tests focus on the evaluation of (a) cognitive‐semantic processing, (b) linguistic processing, (c) productive control of linguistic structures, and (d) convergent and divergent semantic production. The implications of the findings for remedial intervention are discussed. The current data suggest that intervention may be required to (a) increase the efficiency of short‐term memory, (b) facilitate the acquisition and productive control of syntactic structures and complex sentence transformations, and (c) facilitate the retrieval of verbal labels and associations and syntactic structures from long‐term memory. Remedial objectives and strategies are discussed against a background of relevant theoretical data.

This publication has 30 references indexed in Scilit: