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COURSE OUTLINE

This module addresses knowledge and skills relating to linguistics and typical and atypical language and psychological development. It equips students to carry out analyses of language data with an eye to data from children and adults with language impairments. It links closely with other modules in year A, particularly SLAN0004: Management of Communication Disorders 1: Language and Cognition (Developmental), SLAN0005: Management of Communication Disorders 2: Speech and Hearing and SLAN0009: Management of Communication Disorders 3 Language and Cognition (Acquired) in year B. This module is relevant to the Health and Care Professions Council ‘Standards of Proficiency’ for speech and language therapists relating to knowledge and understanding of psychology and linguistics, and the skills required for the application of this knowledge in clinical practice.

AIMS

• To develop students’ understanding of the main properties of human language
• To familiarize students with concepts and terms that are essential to their understanding of how language functions, how it is acquired and how it can be impaired
• To present the typical sequence of language and psychological development
• To consider atypical development of language and cognition
• To examine linguistic and psychological theories of direct relevance to speech and language development and their disorders
• To develop students’ critical evaluation of research methods in linguistics and developmental psychology
• To develop students’ ability to apply their knowledge of relevant theoretical constructs when describing and analysing clinical language data
• To enable students to construct and interpret theoretically grounded clinical tasks for the assessment and treatment of language impairments
• To link theoretical issues presented in this module with clinical issues presented in MCD1, the new professional studies module.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Knowledge and understanding

At the end of the module students will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• Fundamental concepts of syntax, morphology, semantics, pragmatics and sociolinguistics, relevant to speech and language therapy and practice
• The relevant descriptive notations used to analyse the aspects of language covered in the course
• Major theories of cognitive and linguistic development and their relation to social and language development
• Typical stages of language acquisition and cognitive/psychological development
• The variability of atypical development of language and cognition
• The role of cognitive and environmental factors in language acquisition and psychological development.
• The use of theory to inform behavioural observation
• The use of theory to evaluate different forms of intervention
• How linguistic hypotheses are formulated and evaluated
• Formal and informal ways of assessing different aspects of language for research and clinical purposes, with some awareness of the advantages and disadvantages of those methods. In this respect, students will also have to draw on knowledge and skills from other modules, particularly SLAN0004: Management of Communication Disorders 1, Language and Cognition (Developmental).

Skills

At the end of the module students will have learned to:

• Select relevant concepts and notations to describe language data precisely and explicitly;
• Use linguistic concepts to devise suitable headings/checklists for information observation of a client;
• identify and describe patterns in a range of (un)impaired language data and recognise evidence for/against their description of a pattern;
• Judge whether language stimuli used in an experiment or in clinical practice have the required linguistic properties;
• Integrate the results of formal and informal language assessments in order to review and amend previous linguistic hypotheses and guide intervention;
• Identify levels of language and cognitive development in typically developing children;
• judge the stage and age-appropriateness of a child’s language on the basis of formal assessments, language samples and informal observation;
• identify unusual patterns in a child’s language and consider the possible sources of these difficulties in the child’s environment and/or cognitive processing;
• Critically evaluate papers in other disciplines that use the theoretical concepts covered in the course.

These outcomes will be achieved through:

• Teaching of the syllabus outlined below
• Group discussion and peer-evaluation of non-assessed exercises
• Computer assisted learning
• Guidance and formative feedback on the assessed coursework.