Social Competence in Children with Language Impairment: Making Connections

ABSTRACT

Children with language problems frequently experience social difficulty. This is the case not only for children diagnosed as having impairments such as autism spectrum disorder, Asperger syndrome (AS), or mental retardation but also for children falling into diagnostic categories traditionally considered to be primarily language based (e.g., language impairment, learning disability). In considering what interventions might be most effective, it is important to consider how various aspects of development are connected. This article describes causal networks in which various factors influence the relationship between language deficits and social difficulties. Case descriptions of Joseph, an adolescent with language impairment, and Cari, a 6-year-old diagnosed with AS, illustrate the complexity of this relationship and demonstrate how intervention might be designed to facilitate positive social communication outcomes.

Language impairment - social communication - social competence - social skill - emotion regulation - emotion understanding

REFERENCES

1 The term language impairment is used to refer to children with language deficits in the presence of relatively typical growth in other aspects of development.

2 Recognizing the controversy associated with distinguishing Asperger syndrome from high-functioning autism, we have used the diagnostic label assigned to the child by the referral source.

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