Perspectives on the Relationship Between Phonological and Language Disorders

Abstract

The theme of this review, phonological disorders in the context of language, reflects the increasing awareness of the importance of studying the interaction between phonological and language disorders in children rather than studying each of these disorder types separately. We should not fault ourselves entirely, however, for first having devoted a considerable amount of research effort toward describing the various behavioral and physiological correlates of children who demonstrate one or the other disorder type. The complexity of language suggests that its individual parts must first be understood before the relationship between those parts can be determined, though this is probably not the primary reason phonological and language disorders have been treated as separate disciplines in our field. Forces both outside and within this field have functioned to create and maintain the distinction between phonological and language disorders. Outside our field, psychologists and linguists traditionally have separated the two linguistic domains in question, phonology, on one hand, and syntax/semantics (language) on the other. For example, it has been only during the last decade or so that psycholinguists have attempted to determine the effect of higher level linguistic knowledge on the processes of speech perception and production (cf. Clark and Clark, 1977; Cutting and Pisoni, 1978). In the same vein, psychologists interested in language development typically have not been concerned with the processes of speech perception and production. As a case in point, Slobin's (1979) book on psycholinguistics does not even contain a chapter on speech perception or production. The same division can be found in linguistics. Despite some recent attempts to create integrative linguistic models which incorporate phonological and linguistic information (e.g., Chomsky and Halle, 1968; MacWhinney, 1978), linguists are divided readily into those who consider themselves phonologists or phoneticians as opposed to