Yoga for Different Stages of Speech-Language Development 47present their expert clinical opinions regarding the use of
yoga to facilitate development in these areas in children with
neurodevelopmental challenges. They do so on the basis of their
combined 55 years of experience as pediatric speech-language
pathologists and 45 years as yoga practitioners. They accept full
responsibility for the opinions they express.
Language disorder. A language disorder involves impairments
in the comprehension and/or production of language
(American Psychiatric Association 2013) in form, content,
and/or use (Lahey 1988), domains which were introduced
in Chapter 2. These impairments must be distinguished
from language differences, which include dialectal variations
and limited exposure due to second language learning
(Pence Turnbull and Justice 2017). Children with language
impairments can demonstrate reduced word and sentence
structure (the form of language), vocabulary and concepts
(the content of language), and/or conversational and narrative
skills (the use of language). These impairments are considered
primary in the absence of any other developmental challenges,
such as hearing loss, motor dysfunction, intellectual disability,
or other neurological conditions (American Psychiatric
Association 2013; Pence Turnbull and Justice 2017). Once it
is established that these children are not merely “late talkers,”
they are diagnosed with “specific language impairment” (SLI),
a term commonly used by speech-language pathologists
(Leonard 2014; Pence Turnbull and Justice 2017) to refer
to this population. The prevalence of SLI for kindergartners
in the upper Midwestern region of the United States was
7.4 percent overall (Tomblin et al. 1997). Language
impairments also exist secondary to other conditions, such as
intellectual disability and ASD (Pence Turnbull and Justice
2017), which will be subsequently described.