- Individuals with Speech Language Impairment (SLI) have been found to be at greater risk of having attention deficit hyperactivity disorders or ADHD and higher rates of anxiety disorders and aggressive behaviour.
- Children/adolescents with unsuspected language impairments show higher levels of externalizing behavioural disturbance e.g aggression, oppositional; than those with identified language impairments (Cohen et al,1993)
3. With respect to learning, it has been commonly found that in adolescents with SLI
* many will have considerable literacy difficulties in either the comprehension of written material and/or decoding as well as with their writing skills.
* Spoken language difficulties are likely to be evident in both comprehension and expressive language particularly with:
- abstract reasoning
- understanding figurative language
- integrating what they know into broad, abstract concepts
- understanding inferences
- memorizing unrelated topics and the subtle aspects of pragmatic function
- accessing vocabulary, syntax and morphology