High Incidence Disability: Language and Communication Disorders
What is Language and communication disorder?
The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA,1982) gives this specific definition:” A Language disorder is the impairment or deviant development of comprehension and/or use of a spoken/written and/or other symbol system. The disorder may involve (1) the form of Language (phonological, morphologic and syntactic systems), (2) the content of the language (semantic systems), and/or (3) the function of language in communication (pragmatic system) in combination” (p. 949)
Communication refers to verbal and nonverbal communication that involves a sender who encodes the information and a receiver who decodes the information. Language on the other hand has functions other than just communication. It is a cognitive tool that is used to organize information and influences thinking and memory skills.
According to the U.S. Department of Education(1992) children with communication disorders( including speaking, listening, reading and writing) constitute about fourth of all children identified for special education services. Speech and language services are often related services as a secondary impairment to a wide variety of children with disabilities such as hearing impairments, mental retardation, autism, learning disabilities, developmental delays and behavioral/emotional disorders. Language is rarely the only target for interventions for younger children (Ensher, 1989).
