The purpose of this paper is to discuss five areas in the successful remediation of receptive/expressive language disorder. Specifically, the areas to be discussed are: (1) storage and retrieval problems associated with the disorder and methods of intervention to correct or overcome these problems; (2) the learning environment needed to remediate the condition; (3) pragmatics; (4) the relation of storytelling activities to the disorder; and (5) the use of curriculum-based assessment as an evaluation tool.
Receptive/Expressive Language Disorder
Storage/Retrieval Problems and Methods of Correction
Nature of Causes. The first two questions that can be asked regarding the condition of receptive/expressive language disorder and its remediation are: What are the storage and retrieval problems associated with the disorder and what can be done to correct for these problems? Regarding the nature of the problem, Nippold (1992) describes receptive/expressive language disorder as a developmental lag in the cognitive capacity for storing and/or retrieving information. Specifically, the child or adolescent with the disorder experiences either impairment in his/her ability to learn words--an ability requiring that information be placed in memory, or impairment in accessing learned words from memory, or both.
Researchers believe that genetic and biological factors may play a causative role in the development of the condition. For example, Paul (1991) states that genetics involvement in the disorder is suggested by the fact that the disorder is more prevalent in families with a history of speech and language disorders than in families without this history.
If genetics were not involved in the etiology of the problem, it would be expected that the number of children with the disorder would be roughly the same regardless of whether the child's family does or does not have a history of speech and language disorder. The higher ...