Speech/Language Impairment

Definition

Speech or Language Impairment means a communication disorder, such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment or a voice impairment, that adversely affects a child's educational performance.

Criteria

Criteria for Language Impairment

A sound system disorder, which includes articulation and/or phonology, is present when:

1. The child consistently exhibits inappropriate use in any of the structures of language (e.g., morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics) as measured by language sampling or other clinical tasks;.
2. The child's language functioning is significantly below the child's abilities as measured by two (2) or more standardized language assessments. Significantly below is defined as two (2) standard deviations below the mean for children 3 to 5 years of age but not eligible for kindergarten; one standard deviation below cognitive ability for children who are kindergarten age eligible through age 8 and 1.5 standard deviation below cognitive ability for children who are age 9 and older;
3. The language disorder adversely affects the child's educational performance.
4. The language disorder is not a result of dialectal differences or second language influence;