language pathology

The study of all forms of involuntary, abnormal LANGUAGE behavior, especially when associated with medical conditions; also called speech pathology. The term is also used of the behaviors themselves: aphasia, for example, could be described as a type of language pathology. A practitioner of the subject is called (especially in the USA) a speech pathologist or (especially in the UK) a speech and language therapist, with speech therapist still commonly used in the UK, and language pathologist sometimes encountered elsewhere. The subject includes disorders of speaking, listening, reading and writing, and applies both to developmental abnormalities in children and to acquired abnormalities in children or adults. Any recognized area of linguistic structure and use is covered by the term, especially disorders in GRAMMAR, SEMANTICS, PHONOLOGY and PRAGMATICS. ‘Language pathology’ is broader in its implications than ‘speech pathology’, though in practice the subject-matter and professional expertise referred to by the two domains are similar. However, disorders of a primarily PHONETIC nature (such as dysarthria and dysphonia) are traditionally described as being disorders of SPEECH (in a narrow sense) as opposed to ‘language’, on the grounds that they lack any meaningful or symbolic function; and disorders of reading and writing are often excluded or marginalized in the study of speech pathology, whereas they are central to work in remedial educational settings. The term ‘pathology’ is itself controversial, because of its medical connotations: therapists are often unhappy about using it to refer to disorders (such as stuttering) which lack a clear medical cause.