Research in child language disorders: what do we know and where are we going?

Advances in understanding the nature of language impairment in children over the past decade have been abundant. In this paper, several recurring hypotheses about the nature of the clinical disorder of language impairment in children and underlying etiologies are explored and the ways in which we are moving forward in our understanding of them are considered. Specifically, in the first part, the recent thinking on the nature of specific language impairment as a clinical concept is examined. Characteristics of the population are reviewed and the search for causation is considered. Literature on the relations between language and cognition and between language and social cognition is probed for contributions to our understanding of developmental disorders of language. Two areas in which we have seen marked progress and which hold promise for development in the coming decade are the focus of the second part of the paper. The focal areas are: computer-assisted language sample analyses and neurophysiological contribution to understanding language impairment in children. Thoughts about future directions for work in the area of developmental disorders of language are offered in conclusion.