Language Impairment and Specific Learning Disability:
Considerations
Introduction
With the inclusion of oral expression and listening comprehension as two areas of need that may identify a student with Specific Learning Disability, confusion has occurred among eligibility teams when determining whether a student should be identified as having a language impairment or a specific learning disability. This document is intended to provide guidance to eligibility teams in the considerations that are made in making those diagnoses.
Oral Expression (OE) and Listening Comprehension (LC) provide the foundation for learning, particularly with literacy and with overall development, thus leading to success in reading and writing. Both comprehension and expression are essential to academic achievement in all content areas. (Aram & Nation, 1980; Catts, Fey, Zhang & Tomblin, 1999; Catts, Fey, Tomblin, & Zhang, 2002; 2010-11). Skill deficits in the areas of OE and LC will be manifested in other areas of learning such as reading comprehension, reading fluency, written expression, behavior, and/or social relations. For example, listening comprehension precedes reading comprehension. Therefore, if a student shows deficits in reading comprehension, it may be informative to the problem-solving team to look at the student’s listening comprehension skills (Add reference citations).
A student’s insufficient response to intervention for oral expression and/or listening comprehension, reflected by a lack of progress on language-based curricular measures, could indicate a Specific Learning Disability (SLD) or a Speech or language Impairment (SLI). The multidisciplinary eligibility team will examine the body of evidence and make the determination. The SLP will conduct language assessments to assess the student’s strengths and needs in language skills and both SLI and SLD criteria would be reviewed.
A language impairment is indicated when a student’s language skills are significantly discrepant from age-related peers as determined through an assessment process (i.e., a deficit), with an adverse effect on the student’s educational performance. This use of the term “discrepancy” is not the same use of the term as in the “wait to fail” discrepancy model that had been used to identify students with Specific Learning Disabilities (i.e., where the student’s performance was compared to intellectual ability and identified if there was a significant gap between academic performance and cognitive ability). Rather, the process of comparison for a language impairment compares the student’s ability to a normative sample of age-related peers and if the discrepancy is 1.5+ standard deviations below the mean and the student’s language needs have an adverse effect on educational performance, the student may be determined by the eligibility team to have a language impairment.
A specific learning disability is identified when a student demonstrates a deficit, documented through normative assessment measures, that does not respond as expected to targeted or intensive interventions. If a student has deficits in the areas of OE and/or LC, identified through language assessments administered by a SLP, the eligibility team will consider the student’s responses to interventions and decide whether to identify the disability as a language impairment or a specific learning disability. This determination will be based on the team’s decision regarding which disability category is the strongest match with the student’s greatest areas of need.
SLD/SLI disability identification may therefore occur in a variety of ways:
· The student has been supported through differentiated and targeted interventions for the academic skill deficits and is not responding as expected - the data from the process provides the basis for the decision-making for a Specific Learning Disability (SLD) determination.
· The student is suspected of having a language disability and the evaluation process reveals a Speech or Language Impairment (SLI).
· A student is receiving services for SLI and is not responding as expected to the targeted, curricular-based interventions. The team responds to the student’s needs by:
o providing additional services to intensify the interventions (e.g., special education support); or,
o reevaluating the student and identifying the student as Specific Learning Disability, with the SLI data providing the basis for the unexpected lack of progress.
Finally, due to Colorado’s process being needs-based, students may receive speech-language services as specialized instruction even when SLD is determined to be the primary disability. Some young students may be initially identified with a Speech or Language Impairment (SLI) and then later determined to have a Specific Learning Disability.