Pragmatic disorders: A case study of conversational disability

ABSTRACT Along with recent developments in discourse and conversation analysis has come the recognition that some children are impaired in their ability to engage in conversational interaction. In some cases this disability has not been strongly associated with language deficits at other levels of linguistic analysis. This case study of a ten year old child presents a detailed analysis of disordered conversational data as a basis for assessment and remediation, using data from spontaneous conversation as well as from more structured communication tasks. Although the child is deficient in both interactional and transactional aspects of conversation, his major problem is seen to lie in the integration of these components. Furthermore, as the detailed analysis and interpretation of the data reveals, he adopts a variety of communicative strategies to compensate for these deficiencies. Some general implications are drawn for further research in this area.