Adolescent Language Impairment

Many people assume that once a child can effectively communicate his wants or needs, his communication skills are within normal limits.  Some assume that the difference in a person's ability to communicate has more to due with their level of social skills as opposed to the depth and strength of his language skills.  There are a large number of adolescents who have language impairments but are rarely identified which means they are not receiving needed services.  Also, these children often struggle in school and are accused of being lazy or encouraged to simply work harder or study more.  Unfortunately, these kids are often already working extremely hard is they haven't completely given up.  Below are some characteristics of this population of children.  

Adolescents identified with a language disorder often include:

• those initially identified through early intervention programs
• reduced the severity of the problem 
• “remediated”
• those who never received intervention
• those who had normal language but experienced a disruption because of some physical, emotional, or traumatic event
• those who have been identified as having a learning disability

 

Characteristics of Adolescent Language Disorder

1. Failure to understand or pay attention to rules of conversation, for example, turn taking, introducing topics or conversation, and staying on topic
   
2. Difficulty using different language for different needs of the listener or situation
   
3. Incorrect use of grammar
   
4. Poor or limited vocabulary
   
5. Difficulty requesting further information to aid understanding
   
6. Tendency to ask questions that are to general
   
7. Tendency to agree rather than to voice oppositions
   
8. Indirect requests and ambiguous statements
   
9. Class clown behavior
   
10. Extreme forgetfulness
    
11. Withdrawal or exclusion from group activities
    
12. Difficulty with
13. Understanding nonverbal behaviors
14. Difficulty with....

• finding word
  
• puns, idioms, riddles, jokes, sarcasm, and slang
  
• instructions, especially those that are long or grammatically complex
  
• words with multiple meanings
  
• sequencing
  
• expressing thoughts
  
• organizing information