ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the studies that look at social and pragmatic impairments in children with Specific language impairment (SLI), considering how frequent these are, and how far they can be regarded as secondary consequences of structural language limitations. It discusses the cases of pragmatic language impairment (PLI) that are more difficult to explain, because the child's use of language is disproportionately poor in relation to structural language skills. SLI is diagnosed when a child has selective difficulties in mastering language, but is developing normally in other respects. Most accounts of SLI stress the disproportionate difficulties seen with specific aspects of language structure, but some children have a rather different clinical picture. A common reaction is to regard the pragmatic difficulties and nonverbal impairments in social or imaginative behaviours that are seen in SLI as secondary to the oral language difficulties.
