Language disorder

Main article: Speech and language pathology

Language disorders or language impairments are disorders that cause persistent difficulty in the acquisition and use of listening and speaking skills. These difficulties may involve any of the five domains of language: phonology, syntax, morphology, semantics, or pragmatics. Language disorders may affect listening comprehension, spoken language expression, reading comprehension, and/ or written expression. Language disorders may persist across the life span, and symptoms may change over time. A language disorder can occur in isolation or in the presence of other conditions. Language disorders may occur from birth or early childhood, or they may be acquired later from disease or injury.

Language disorder
Specialty	Speech language pathology

In the United States, speech language pathologists screen, assess, diagnose, and treat language disorders.^[1]

The term developmental language disorder is used to refer to a spoken language disorder that is a primary disability without a known medical cause and persisting beyond childhood. DLD is also used when the language disorder co-occurs with other diagnoses, but the causal relationship is not as obvious.^[2] Some research and legislation refers to this as a specific language impairment.^[3]

The term aphasia is used to refer to an acquired language disorder, usually resulting from damage to the left hemisphere of the brain, that affects language processing. Aphasia may be caused by a stroke, traumatic brain injury, or various neurodegenerative diseases. There are various types of aphasia, depending on the area of the brain affected.^[4]

Language disorders are also often found co-occurring with other neurodevelopmental disorders, such as behavior disorders^[5], autism^[6], Down syndrome, and ADHD^[7].

People with language disorders often have trouble learning to read and write.^[8][9] Many people with dyslexia also have a language disorder.^[10]

Current data indicates that approximately 7% of young children display developmental language disorder,^[11][12] with boys being diagnosed twice as often as girls in young children.^[13]

Preliminary research on potential risk factors have suggested biological components, such as low birth weight, prematurity, general birth complications, trauma, and male gender, as well as family history and low parental education can increase the chance of developing developmental language disorder.^[14]

There is scientific evidence supporting various speech and language therapy strategies for improving language skills in people with developmental language disorder.^{[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]} Parent training can be effective in improving outcomes for young children with developmental language disorder.^[23]

Language disorders are distinct from speech disorders, which involve difficulty with the act of speech production, but not with the content of the communicative message. Speech and language disorders commonly co-occur, but are distinctly different.

See also

* Autism

• Aphasia
• Broca's area
• Wernicke's area
• Communication disorder
• Dyslexia
• Speech–language pathology
• Specific language impairment
• Hearing loss