A spoken language disorder (SLD), also known as an oral language disorder, represents a significant impairment in the acquisition and use of language across modalities due to deficits in comprehension and/or production across any of the five language domains (i.e., phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics). Language disorders may persist across the lifespan, and symptoms may change over time.

 The relationship between spoken and written language is well established. Children with spoken language problems frequently have difficulty learning to read and write. Additionally, children with reading and writing problems often have difficulty with spoken language, particularly as it relates to higher-order spoken language skills, such as expository discourse. Some children with language disorders may have social communication difficulty, because language processing, along with social interaction, social cognition, and pragmatics, comprise social communication.

 The goal of language intervention is to stimulate overall language development and to teach language skills in an integrated fashion and in context, so as to enhance everyday communication and ensure access to academic content. Goals are frequently selected with consideration for developmental appropriateness and the potential for improving the effectiveness of communication and academic and social success.

Intervention for Preschoolers (Ages 3–5)

In typically developing preschool children, language is developing at a rapid pace; their vocabularies are growing, and they are beginning to master basic sentence structures. For children with language difficulties, this process may be delayed. For children in this population, areas targeted for intervention typically include:

Phonology

• improving significantly impaired intelligibility—particularly if it results in frustration in communicating and/or masks problems in semantics and syntax—including

  • increasing consonant repertoire, improving accuracy of sound production, decreasing use of phonological processes

• enhancing phonological awareness skills, such as

  • rhyming

  • blending and segmenting spoken words at the syllable, onset and rime, and phoneme levels

  • deletion of whole words, syllables, and phonemes in spoken words, phrases, and/or sentences

Semantics

• increasing size of vocabulary, including verbs, pronouns, conjunctions and basic concept vocabulary

• increasing understanding and use of a wider range of semantic relationships (e.g., agent-action, agent-object, possessor-possession, attribute-entity, recurrence)

Morphology and Syntax

• facilitating acquisition and use of age-appropriate morphemes—in particular, auxiliary verbs, articles, pronouns

• increasing sentence length and complexity

• increasing use of varied sentence types

Pragmatics

• increasing flexibility of language for various contexts

• using imaginative play activities to practice newly acquired language skills

• improving conversational skills, including

  • initiating and maintaining communication

  • turn taking, topic maintenance, and topic shifts

  • requesting and making conversational repairs

• developing narrative skills

• building emergent literacy skills, including print awareness, book awareness, understanding simple story structure, and letter knowledge

**All information on this page has been retrieved directly from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) website. https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/spoken-language-disorders/