Developmental Dysphasia

The subject of this two part work is the acquisition of language structure in which the development of syntax and morphology is examined by investigations on children without language problems and on children with developmental dysphasia. The author uses a comparative acquisition study to provide insights into the structure and development of the language acquisition device, which cannot be obtained by isolated analysis of only one type of learning. The theoretical framework used for the investigations is the learnability theory, in which acquisition models are proposed which are heavily influenced by theoretical linguistics. Part I shows how child grammar acquisition can be explained in the framework of learnability theory and Part II deals with deficiencies in normal grammar acquisition using the learnability theory.

Children with Specific Language Impairment covers all aspects of SLI, including its history, possible genetic and neurobiological origins, and clinical and educational practice.

The subject of this two part work is the acquisition of language structure in which the development of syntax and morphology is examined by investigations on children without language problems and on children with developmental dysphasia. The author uses a comparative acquisition study to provide insights into the structure and development of the language acquisition device, which cannot be obtained by isolated analysis of only one type of learning. The theoretical framework used for the investigations is the learnability theory, in which acquisition models are proposed which are heavily influenced by theoretical linguistics. Part I shows how child grammar acquisition can be explained in the framework of learnability theory and Part II deals with deficiencies in normal grammar acquisition using the learnability theory.

The distinguished contributors to this volume examine epidemiologic and clinical issues that may make the developing brain more vulnerable to environmental and genetic influences, which can in turn lead to abnormal brain plasticity and behavior. Although major forms of brain malformation have been clearly associated with functional deficits, mild forms have historically been ignored or trivialized; this book supports the hypothesis that several types of such malformation reflect brain injury during critical stages of development, and also the premise that more and more disturbances of thought and behavior stem from abnormalities of brain organization.

A great deal has been written on how children learn to speak, but development of language comprehension has been a relatively neglected topic. This book is unique in integrating research in language acquisition, psycholinguistics and neuropsychology to give a comprehensive picture of the process we call "comprehension", right from the reception of an acoustic stimulus at the ear, up to the point where we interpret the message the speaker intended to convey by the utterance. A major theme of the book is that "comprehension" is not a unitary skill: to understand spoken language, one needs the ability to classify incoming speech sounds, to relate them to a "mental lexicon", to interpret the propositions encoded by word order and grammatical inflections, and to use information from the environmental and social context to select, from a wide range of possible interpretations, the one that was intended by the speaker. Furthermore, although neuropsychological and experimental research on adult comprehension can provide useful concepts and methods for assessing comprehension, they should be applied with caution, because a sequential, bottom-up information processing model of comprehension is ill-suited to the developmental context. The emphasis of the book is on children with specific language impairments, but normal development is also given extensive coverage. The focus is on research and theory, rather than practical matters of assessment and intervention. Nevertheless, while this book is not intended as a clinical guide to assessment, it does aim to provide a theoretical framework that can help clinicians develop a clearer understanding of what comprehension involves, and how different types of difficulty may be pinpointed.

This book provides a nontechnical account of human development that is particularly relevant to an understanding of psychiatric disorders. In describing the process of physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral development, the contributors emphasize the aspects of development of greatest interest to clinicians, and examine normal development in relation to its implications in clinical pathology.