Specific Language Impairment as a Clinical Category

Many children are diagnosed as "specifically language-impaired" principally on the basis of their low scores relative to the norm on language measures. Yet it is often assumed that such children must suffer from a subtle disruption or defect in some peripheral or central mechanism that is involved in language learning. In this paper, an alternative view is offered: Many of these children may simply be limited in language ability in much the same way that others may be poor in musical, spatial, or bodily kinesthetic abilities.