# data[].attributes.body
language-based learning disabilities (LLD) are the most common type of learning disability, primarily because most learning disabilities involve deficits in reading, writing, or spelling

LLD include difficulties with any or all of the child’s phonological, semantic, syntax, pragmatic, and discourse systems.

School-age children diagnosed with LLD of-ten have a history of delayed speech and language development during preschool.

# data[].attributes.body
The U.S. Census Bureau (2013) reported that more than 55 million people—20% of the population over age five—speak a language other than English at home

It is estimated that by 2025, one in four students in schools will be an English Language Learner (ELL).

Its imperative that teachers not confuse language disorders with language differences arising from differences in dialect, culture, ethnicity, or influence of a foreign language.

# data[].attributes.body
The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (2015) reported that between 6 million and 8 million people in the United States have some form of language impairment

Some language disorders may be the result of infection, tumor, stroke, epilepsy, brain injury, hearing loss, chromosomal anomalies, or motor functioning disorders.

Frequently, however, the cause is unknown.

# data[].attributes.body
In this stage of language development, children develop substantial meta linguistic ability, especially as they meet the challenges of learning about defining words

Phonological (or phonemic) awareness is the ability to recognize individual phonemes in spoken language, that is, to identify the sounds, syllables, and sound structure of words

Children in this stage of development also ac-quire a more elaborate understanding and ability with the meta-pragmatic aspects of manipulating conversation

# data[].attributes.body
The narrative abilities of children vary with the circumstances in which they are telling a story

Before age seven, most typically developing English-speaking children tell stories that are some-what incomplete

Beginning around age seven, children begin to be able to tell stories that have a plot driven by resolving some sort of problem or conflict.

School success depends on children understanding how classroom discourse works.

The most prevalent types of expository discourse children encounter in the early school years are description and explanation.

Both forms of discourse differ from conversational and narrative discourse in that they are more de-contextualized.

Later during the school years, children encounter a more abstract and complicated argumentative or persuasive discourse.

Most school-age children develop some proficiency with the oral forms of argument or persuasion, which do not always contain all the components characteristic of this type of discourse.

# data[].attributes.headline
How Children Acquire and Develop Language

# data[].attributes.subject
How Children Acquire and Develop Language

# data[].attributes.body
Language is typically described as a stage-by-stage process as follows:

1. Early communication and emerging language–—typically from just after birth through 12 months of age

2. Toddler language—between 12 and 24 months

3. Preschool language—between ages two and five

4. School-age language—ages five through the elementary school years

5. Adolescent/advanced language—through the adolescent years

# data[].attributes.body
Language users employ language on different levels of abstraction, ranging from the literal and concrete to the abstract and figurative

At the literal level, language functions to convey the concrete, primary meaning of a word or phrase

At the figurative level, language conveys a more abstract and secondary meaning through expressing one thing but being understood as meaning some-thing different

Children must develop the ability to reflect on language, talk about it, and manipulate it. This is called meta linguistic ability and begins to emerge when children first grasp the idea that different people can have the same name.

one of the most important aspects of meta linguistic ability is phonological (and phonemic) awareness, the understanding that speech consists of sounds and syllables.

Phonological awareness is a basic prerequisite for learning to correlate speech sounds with printed letters in order to decode the written word and evolves out of the child’s awareness that language has parts that can be talked about and analyzed.

# data[].attributes.body
Language content is usually discussed in terms of semantics

Relationships between words and referents are arbitrary and symbolic (i.e., words are symbols that represent some thing, idea, concept, event, or process).

# data[].attributes.body
(5.1) Discuss the nature of language including the evolution of language, the function of language, and the relationship between communication, language, and speech.

(5.2) Identify and discuss the primary components of our system of language.

(5.3) Identify the types of language disabilities and disorders that may be present in students.

(5.4) Discuss formal and informal language assessment strategies.

(5.5) Understand and identify effective instructional strategies for teaching spoken language.

# data[].attributes.body
Humans have been using language to communicate in one form or another for millennia.

In the United States, there are over 300 living languages still spoken by at least some native speakers

Of those whose native language is not English, nearly 60% of people sampled in the 2010 census

language mediates between the thing, experience, process, or feeling and the saying of it.

language is unique because it is a generative system, meaning it is creative.

Using the finite rules of language and a finite set of words (e.g., nouns, pronouns, verbs), a person can generate an infinite number of meaningful utterances.

Spoken language underlies most school-based learning in the early grades and predicts children’s success with reading, spelling, writing, and literacy

Many children diagnosed with learning disabilities have spoken language difficulties that interfere with their ability to succeed in reading, writing, and spelling.

# data[].attributes.headline
Relationship of Communication, Language, and Speech

# data[].attributes.subject
Relationship of Communication, Language, and Speech

# data[].attributes.body
Communication can occur through various means, both verbal and nonverbal

EXAMPLES: speaking, signing, alternative and augmentative communication systems, reading, writing, music, dance, mathematics, codes, games, and symbols.

This list demonstrates that communication need not be solely linguistic (e.g., words, word parts, phrases, sentences).

Much of communication occurs either through other codification systems (music, dance, mathematics, or codes) or through nonverbal, para linguistic, or meta linguistic signals.

A large portion of communication occurs via nonverbal cues, including head, hand, and general body posture; gestures; facial expressions; head, body, and hand movements; eye contact; and physical distance.

Para linguistic signals—intonation, emphasis (stress), speed/rate of delivery, and pause/hesitation—are superimposed on speaking, writing, and/or signing to convey attitude or emotion.

Meta linguistic skills include being able to reflect on and talk about language and all its aspects, being able to separate it from its content enough to manipulate and play with it.

For children learning language, developing meta linguistic abilities allows them to define words; identify homonyms, antonyms, and synonyms; recognize homophones; identify syntactic and morphological elements; and match sounds to letters

# data[].attributes.body
According to the National Center for Education Statistics (2015), approximately 4.4 million students (9.2%) spoke a native language other than English.

Cultural differences in language present several challenges for educators. One is that many educators have limited opportunities to learn the skills that prepare them to teach students from cultures other than their own.

# data[].attributes.body
School-age children with language disorders of-ten experience later difficulties in learning to read, write, and learn.

In school-age children, an estimated 7% have an identifiable language disorder that is often associated with later difficulties in learning to read, write, and learn

61% of speech and language clinicians in schools reported that they provided services to children with language disorders

Teachers are highly likely to have one or more students with a language disorder in their classes.

The most prevalent model used by language professionals comprises five parts: use, content, form, narrative, and nonverbal. In addition, any discussion of language must include a description of the literal and figurative levels of language use.

# data[].attributes.body
Pragmatics describes the functions of language, or what we are trying to make happen through our language patterns, particularly in social situations.

This set of implicit rules is a kind of “code of conduct,” first described by Bates (1976), that includes these components:

We tell the truth when we’re communicating.

We cooperate with our conversational partners.

We offer only information we believe to be new and relevant to each conversational partner.

We ask only for information from our conversational partners that we truly want to have (i.e., we don’t ask obvious, “dumb” questions).

We give our conversational partners just the right amount of information to make our point

We are unambiguous in our conversations.

We alter our language to fit each social setting.

Another aspect of language use is discourse, which is defined as a linguistic unit (e.g., a conversation, a story, a speech) larger than a sentence.

children are first exposed to conversational discourse, which, though it varies in form and content across cultures, functions primarily as a way to communicate within social-interactive contexts. all cultures use narrative discourse, which involves characters, plot, setting, and resolution of the conflict.

Dramatic discourse is used whenever a scene, story, or play is conveyed to an audience either live or through radio, film, television, or via the Internet.

Poetic discourse utilizes language “which focuses on the expression of feelings, ideas, imaginations, events and places through specific rhymes and rhythms”

When children enter school, they are immersed
in classroom discourse (i.e., the language used in teaching and learning).

Adults in language-literate households frequently converse with their children using classroom discourse, particularly in their efforts to teach their children about the world and how to display their knowledge about it to adults.

Expository discourse includes the non-narrative
discourses common to textbooks, articles, essays, editorials, and some online blogs.

descriptive (describes a thing, process, event, experience, or idea),

explanatory (explains how something works or how to do something)

argumentative/persuasive (attempts to convince or persuade the audience/reader of something.

# data[].attributes.body
The structures of language are grouped into three categories: phonology, morphology, and syntax.

Phonology comprises the set of rules governing which sounds in a language are pronounce-able and used to make meaning as well as how they can be combined to make meaning.

The smallest linguistic units to carry meaning are phonemes,which are the pronounceable sounds in a language.

Morphology is the set of rules governing how phonemes can be combined into larger units (syllables and words) in order to convey meaning.

Syntax is the set of rules governing how phrases and sentences must be constructed in order to convey meaning.