Trying to make sense of developmental language disorders

In this article, I share my thoughts concerning what children with developmental language disorders should be called, how they should be defined, and:how we. might differentiate children with specific language impairment (SLI) from other children with developmental:: language disorders; Among other things, I attempt to show why a lack of congruence between clinical and research constructs should be expected. Researchers and clinicians use different identification criterion and procedures because clinical and education: objectives are different from research objectives. While recognizing these differences, I suggest several possible ways to differentiate a subgroup of children with SLI:from;:the general population of children with : ;developmental language disorders without using nonverbal;: IQ. Even if researchers are able to identify:this: :unique group of children, clinicians may never embrace the SLI construct. In the best of all possible worlds, clinicians would familiar with how researchers define SLI and appreciate : the value of research that attempts to identify distinct subgroups of children with developmental language disorders. Researchers, in this ideal world, would recognize and acknowledge the lack of congruence; between the research populations of SLI and the larger clinical population of children with developmental language disorders.