ABSTRACT
This chapter considers definitional issues, arguing that a broad view of social communication, which subsumes pragmatics, provides the most viable clinical approach to the wide range of problems that individuals with language problems experience in social interactions. The resulting innovations in language assessment and intervention were labeled the pragmatics revolution. Language disorder is characterized by deficits in the production and comprehension of language structure, including vocabulary words, morphological forms, and complex syntactic structures. In C. Adams' framework, pragmatics refers to the ability to manipulate language form to communicate a speaker's message appropriately in different contexts. Considerable research has examined the nature of interactional problems in children with language difficulties. Children with Language Impairment have syntactic, morphological, and semantic deficits that cannot be attributed to low cognitive abilities, poor motor skills, or impaired sensory systems. Traditionally, language assessment focused primarily on describing the individual with a suspected deficit.
