Language Disorders
What are Language Disorders?
While speech disorders refer to the inability to produce sounds correctly, language disorders refer to difficulty communicating using speech, writing, or gestures. We commonly see two main types of language disorders: receptive language disorder and expressive language disorder. Difficulty expressing meaning to others is referred to as an expressive language disorder while difficulty understanding other speakers is called a receptive language disorder. When you have difficulties with both expressing and understanding, the diagnosis is a mixed receptive-expressive language disorder.
Receptive Language Disorders
The ability to understand language and what it means are the building blocks of communication. The ability to communicate cannot be acquired without the capacity to understand language. Receptive language disorder means the person is struggling with understanding what is said to them. The symptoms can vary but, generally, problems with language comprehension usually begins before the age of four years.
Children initially learn to understand basic and familiar vocabulary words such as: bottle, pacifier, and ball. This is commonly seen by their ability to point to these objects before they can say them. Furthermore, children initially learn to follow simple commands such as “sit down”, “give me”, and “wave bye-bye”, before they can repeat these directions independently.
Expressive Language Disorder
When a person is having difficultly conveying or expressing information in speech, writing, sign language or gestures it is a distinct possibility that an underlying language disorder is present. Sometimes, an individual with a receptive language disorder also has an expressive language disorder, which means they have trouble using spoken language.
Developmental milestones are highly individualized, and some children may reach milestones later than their peers, but eventually they catch up. Growing up in a multilingual home or having limited exposure to language may impact overall language development. These children are commonly referred to as ‘late-talkers’.
What are Signs of Language Disorders – Receptive and Expressive?
Receptive Disorder Signs:
- Limited vocabulary
- Not being able to “get” the meaning of what others are saying
- Tuning out when people talk
- Trouble following directions
- Trouble answering questions
- Interrupting people who are speaking
- Asking people to repeat what they say
- Giving answers that are “off”
- Misunderstanding what’s said
- Not getting jokes
- Poor reading comprehension
- Struggling to follow /understand a storyline
- Difficulty with figurative language and inferences
Expressive Disorder Signs:
- Using vague words, like “thing” or “stuff”
- Using noticeably fewer words and sentences than same-aged peers
- Using shorter, simpler sentence construction than same-aged peers
- Making grammatical errors, leaving off words, and using poor or incomplete sentence structure (for example, “He going school” instead of “He’s going to school” and “I sleep” instead of “I’m going to sleep”)
- Having a limited and more basic vocabulary than same-aged peers
- Having trouble finding words
- Frequently having trouble finding the right word
- Using the wrong words in sentences or confusing meanings in sentences
- Leaving out words
- Being unable to come to the point or talking in circles
- Having problems with retelling a story or relaying information in an organized or cohesive way
- Being late to begin talking.
- Speaking quietly/Sounding hesitant when attempting to converse
- Being unable to start or hold a conversation and not observing general rules of communicating with others
- Having difficulty with oral and written work, school assignments, and professional responsibilitie”
