The Grammatical Analysis of Language Disability

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Of all the points of contact between linguistics and those who work in the field of language abnormality, none has been more neglected until recently than the study of syntax. This book introduces, describes and explains a grammatical assessment and remediation procedure that can be used with children or adults displaying the various types of language disability.

The authors begin by arguing the centrality of syntax in any study of language, and by providing a detailed critique of efforts made to analyse language disability in syntactic terms. They outline a syntactic model of description, relating this model to the various published accounts of grammar that are available, and set out the stages of normal syntactic development against which abnormal development can be measured. the core of the book is the presentation and exemplification of a new remedial procedure, the result of some ten years' research and clinical work, entitled LARSP: Language Assessment, Remediation and Screening Procedure. Each stage of the procedure is set out, illustrated by profile charts and transcripts from remedial sessions, and the two final chapters present case studies of a child and an adult whose language problems were approached by this method.

This book, the first in the new series entitled studies in Language Disability and Remediation, has been written for all those who have a professional, practical or research interest in the study and treatment of language disorder.