SPECIFIC LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT: A CASE STUDY OF BIAGA KPANDU

Abstract

Language is a powerful tool humans are endowed with for proper and effective communication. This tool is peculiar only to humans. This seminar paper discusses specific Language Impairment (SLI), which is a type of Language disorder that affects the expressive and receptive abilities of children around 5 years of age and can continue till adulthood if proper and adequate care and attention is not given. The term SLI is specifically for children whose Language difficulties persist into school age, not for toddlers who are late to start talking. Hence, our case study focuses on Biaga Kpandu, a boy of three years seven months old. This boy has a type of SLI known as developmental verbal dyspraxia (DVD), which makes the onset of speech for him very delayed and extremely limited with impaired production of speech sounds and utterances. The theory used in this study is the Emergentist Coalition Model (ECM). This is a current model of language acquisition in typically developing (normal) children and it has been empirically vindicated in a great number of experimental studies with typically developing children. Data for this work were collected from books, internet material, interviews and observations. The study covers a general view of language disorder, reviews of related works done by scholars, SLI and its subtypes, Psycholinguistics study of   Kpandu in relation to SLI, and possible ways to help his situation. Finally a simple conclusion is made. 

 

Keywords: Language impairment, Speech therapy, Speech disorder, Psycholinguistics