ABSTRACT
I f one were to ask a lay person to describe a symptom of a language disorder, the typicalanswer would probably focus on a phonological error (“wabbit” for rabbit); on aproblem related to academic performance, such as difficulty in learning to read; or on a specific named disorder that is associated also with deficits in areas other than language, such as autism-spectrum disorder or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. The general public’s knowledge of language disorders of an unknown origin is, in general, quite limited. This is true despite the fact that such language impairments are relatively common, with recent prevalence estimates of approximately 7.42% from a population-based sample in the Midwestern United States (Tomblin et al., 1997). Even within the study of functional language impairments, there are great discrepancies in the specific topics that have been studied. Within this research area, a much larger proportion of research has examined morphology, syntax, and academic problems of children with language impairment than has examined these children’s speech perception, speech production, and their knowledge of higher-level aspects of the sound structure of language. Yet the latter are arguably the foundations on which knowledge of more abstract aspects of language, such as syntax, is based. Sounds are one of the media through which language is conveyed. Deficits in knowledge of sounds may contribute to, maintain, or even be a causal factor in language impairments. Thus, the topic of this chapter-a review of studies of what children with language impairments know about the knowledge of sounds-is a topic that is both understudied and poorly understood, as well as being one that can explain much about the nature of a commonly occurring childhood communicative disorder.
