Language sample analysis (LSA) has been called the "gold standard" for clinical language assessment with children learning more than one language. The research literature discussing this clinical tool with bilingual children has grown substantially in recent years. This article reviews and synthesizes the literature on LSA in order to…

Learning disabilities (LDs) have long been presumed to be a neurological disorder resulting from a deficit in 1 or more cognitive processes. Although the emphasis on cognitive processing disorders has been included in the definition since the term was coined, and although it arguably represents the key distinguishing characteristic of LDs, it also…

Reviews studies that have explored interrelationships among linguistic components in children with language disorders and describes the controversy over the interpretation of these linguistic interrelationships. Explanations for the occurrence or absence of linguistic trade-offs, including limited capacity processing models, and the implications…

The article looks at syntactic deficiencies involving simple clause structures and grammatical morphology in young children. A framework for understanding the development of simple clause structures is presented followed by a discussion of the correlates of early syntactic development. Procedures to assess and remediate syntactic deficiencies are…

Research findings on articulatory and acoustic characteristics of infant noncry/nondistress vocalization are applied to the clinical assessment of infant noncry vocal activity. Discussed are differentiation and definitions of cry and noncry productions, stages of vocalization, a protocol for developmental vocal assessment, and interpretation of…

Evidence is offered that children with specific language impairment often have serial memory difficulties. Research on the difficulties such children have in rote counting and in learning nursery rhymes is reviewed. Implications of current research for assessment and intervention in mathematics and rhymes are discussed. (DB)

Begins by using the traditional psycholinguistic view of comprehension as a framework to compare the processes involved in listening and reading comprehension. Two other views of comprehension are then discussed. Finally, ways in which these different views of comprehension affect approaches to assessment and treatment are reviewed. (Author/CR)

The anatomy of speech and language-related cortical areas is reviewed with an emphasis on neuroimaging methods that have been utilized to better understand the anatomy and functional extent of critical speech-language areas. Contributions from pneumoencephalography, computerized tomography scans, and magnetic resonance imaging are discussed.…

Discusses reasons for including prosody in the management of language impairment in children and presents a classification framework that includes four categories of prosodic problems: dysprosody (pitch, loudness, duration, and pausing), prosodic disability (tempo, intonation, stress, and rhythm), prosodic disturbance (interaction disruption), and…

This article examines the principles of information processing and the ways in which they can both facilitate and interfere with the language comprehension and production performance of children with language impairment. The clinical implications of these notions for assessment and intervention with children are discussed. (Author/CR)

The article examines the child's ability to produce complex sentences with sections on a structural framework for complex language (clausal and nonclausal complexity), a developmental perspective (coordination of clauses, subordination of nominal, adverbial, and relative clauses), and applied considerations (evaluating and teaching complex…

The three general approaches for measuring speech intelligibility in young children are open-set word identification, closed-set word identification, and rating scales. Positive and negative aspects of the various procedures for measuring speech intelligibility are discussed. (Author/DB)

This article reviews different procedures to sample and evaluate a student's spelling skills. Suggestions for further analysis of error patterns in spelling to determine possible causal or maintaining factors, guided by the Spelling Analysis Flowchart, are discussed. By utilizing this hypothesis-driven process, appropriate and effective…

Presents a framework for prosodic analysis of children with language impairments based on systemic phonology. English prosody and speaker usage is discussed; the role of tone, stress, rhythm, and pause are considered; and speech samples are used to show how utterances are broken down into prosodic units. (Author/CR)

The matching of students with language learning disabilities and dyslexia to appropriate reading materials is discussed, and formal and informal methods are presented for determining reading levels for accuracy, fluency, and comprehension instruction and practice. The Spache Readability Formula, the New Dale-Challe Readability Formula, and…