Start with an assessment
For a child under six, Developmental Milestones covers language and communication as one of its seven domains. From seven upward it is the Individualized NeuroDevelopmental Profile.
Language disorders
Language disorders split two ways: receptive, meaning what comes in, and expressive, meaning what goes out. Either side can be affected on its own, which is why the two are assessed separately.
Language across three systems
Receptive and expressive language draw on different systems, which is why they can fail apart from each other.
Temporal lobes
Auditory reception and segmenting, association and closure, and the sequential memory that holds a sentence together.
Parietal lobes
Morphology and semantics, the structure and meaning that sit underneath vocabulary.
Prefrontal cortex
Syntax and pragmatics, the rules of construction and the rules of conversation.
The Magnificent 7 is the work of Dr. Lisé DeLong. Copyright © 2013, all rights reserved.
What people describe
Receptive and expressive language fail independently, so the description matters more here than almost anywhere else.
- Understanding far more than can be said back
- Vocabulary that arrives but will not assemble
- Having the words, and missing the rules of the conversation
- Sentences that start in one grammar and finish in another
How we work with it
Then the work itself
For this presentation that usually means Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy, structured therapy after injury, illness or decline. Morphology, semantics, syntax and pragmatics are four separate targets. A plan that names them is a plan; one that says “language” is not.
Questions people ask
What people ask when a delay and a disorder look the same from the outside.
How is this different from a speech delay?
A delay is about timing; a disorder is about the mechanism. The assessment is what separates them, because it looks at which systems are producing the gap, and not only at the gap.
Do you work with both children and adults?
Yes. We support individuals across the entire lifespan, from early childhood and developmental milestones through adulthood and senior care.
What produces the plan?
Your Individualized Developmental Profile. It pinpoints the functional baseline and decides which targeted remediation activities are appropriate.
For the work between appointments
What we hand parents to use at home, sold through our storefront.
Functional Sign Language Manual
A practical signing dictionary for opening a channel with a child who is not yet speaking.
$14.95 USD
Children’s Relaxation: The Little Girl, The Dragon and The Owl
A bedtime story a child breathes along with, so the breathing is learned without being taught.
$9.95 USD
My “Lived-Experience” Journal
Handwriting reaches memory and emotional processing along pathways typing does not. Shipped inside the US.
$14.95 USD
Prices in USD, as published in the storefront. Checkout, delivery and support for anything on this shelf run through store.cognitive-connections.com.
Assess what comes in and what goes out separately
Understanding far more than can be said back is a specific finding, and it points at a specific plan.