To support adolescents with language-based learning disabilities (LLD), speech-language pathologists (SLPs) should adopt a multiliteracies framework that targets critical media literacy skills. Multiliteracies recognize the increasingly digital and collaborative nature of written language that adolescents encounter and promote using online…

In honor of Dr. Katherine Butler's extraordinary leadership of "Topics in Language Disorders," this article takes up her 1982 challenge to reach toward greater understanding of individual differences in the use of oral and written language by children with language learning disability. The article focuses on 3 interconnected dimensions of learning…

Currently students who struggle with language and literacy learning are classified with various labels in different states--language learning disabilities, dyslexia, specific language impairment, and specific learning disability--in spite of having similar diagnostic profiles. Drawing on the research on comprehension of written language, we…

Programmatic, multidisciplinary research provided converging brain, genetic, and developmental support for evidence-based diagnoses of three specific learning disabilities based on hallmark phenotypes (behavioral expression of underlying genotypes) with treatment relevance: dysgraphia (impaired legible automatic letter writing, orthographic…

The technological and social/cultural demands of the 21st century are reshaping communication requirements. Students not only need to be able to communicate effectively in oral and written language, but they also need to communicate effectively in multimodal ways--they need to become skilled in multiliteracies. This article explains the two…

Speaking, listening, reading, and writing are all language activities. The human capacity for speaking and listening has a biological foundation: wherever there are people, there is spoken language. Acquiring spoken language is an unconscious activity, and, barring any physical deformity or language learning disability, like severe autism, all…

In education, the term learning disability is used to describe specific kinds of problems that an individual has with understanding or using spoken or written language. A student with a specific learning disability may have difficulty listening, thinking, speaking, reading, writing, spelling, or doing math problems. You may have heard of dyslexia.…

This book captures the diversity and richness of writing as it relates to different forms of abilities, skills, competencies, and expertise. Psychologists, educators, researchers, and practitioners in neighboring areas are interested in exploring how writing develops and in what manner this development can be fostered, but they lack a handy,…

Rubrics are an integral part of many writing programs, and they represent elements of good writing in essays, stories, poems, as well as other genres and forms of text. Although it is possible to use rubrics to teach students about the processes underlying effective writing, a more common practice is to use rubrics as a means of assessment, after…

Purpose: This final article covering the topic of the interplay between decoding, comprehension, and content versus structure knowledge describes a set of language initiatives that are focused toward content area learning. Inspired by the work of their colleagues from diverse fields and their own work, the authors offer suggestions to clinicians…

Error Monitoring, a learning strategy designed to enable a student to detect and correct errors in written products, was taught to nine learning disabled (LD) adolescents. The instructional procedure involved an 11 step process including such procedures as describing the steps of the strategy, modeling the strategy, and student practice to…

The vast majority of American-born adults are exposed to written language from a very early age. Most Americans live in a print-based society where letters and words are everywhere! Drive, walk, or bike down any American street and you will see numerous eye-catching billboards, signs, and storefronts. Our towns, cities, neighborhoods, and homes…

This article reviews the varied components of written language, suggest informal means for written language assessment, and summarizes the cognitive and linguistic factors that influence varied aspects of writing performance. Two informal evaluation scales are presented that stress the interconnection between oral and written language processes.…

In two original articles from the inaugural issue of "Topics in Language Disorders", Berlin, Blank, and Rose proposed a model of dialogue complexity on the basis of a continuum of abstractness defined as perceptual-language distance; Carlson, Gruenewald, and Nyberg proposed a triadic model of academic concepts, student language, and…

This article describes the nature of the embedded language components of the postsecondary classroom and Landmark College's strategies to assist students with dyslexia, attention deficit disorders, and other language-based disabilities to develop the critical and abstract thinking, reading, writing and study skills that will enable them to…