Why Good Language Therapy Still Fails in Young Adults

Young adults who enter language therapy in college or after college are often very different from teenagers whose parents bring them to treatment. Many already know they are struggling. Some were identified with developmental language disorder (DLD) late. Some never received services. Others received limited or poor-quality intervention and spent years compensating, avoiding difficult tasks,

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Why Language Therapy Works for Some Teens and Fails for Others

By adolescence, language therapy changes. A younger child can make progress because adults structure the session, prompt practice, and carry many of the supports into daily life. A 16-year-old can sit through excellent therapy every week and change very little if they see no problem, do not own the goals, or have no intention of

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Smart Isn’t Enough: Why Social Communication Matters in Adult Life

We spend enormous amounts of time measuring school success. Grades. Test scores. GPA. Reading level. Math performance. College admission. All of those things matter. But life after school is not graded on a curve. Academic success does not automatically translate into success in adult life. Adults have to work with other people. They have to

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When CAPs Scores Don’t Add Up: Scoring the Clinical Assessment of Pragmatics (CAPs) accurately

Over the past several years, second-opinion consultations and reassessments have repeatedly put reports with Clinical Assessment of Pragmatics (CAPs) results on my desk that simply did not make clinical sense. I am not talking about one borderline score or a child who happened to perform better than expected on one task. I am talking about

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When “Difference” Hides Disability

As a profession, speech-language pathology has appropriately focused on reducing the misidentification of culturally and linguistically diverse students. Furthermore, we now recognize that dialect, bilingualism, second-language acquisition, and limited educational opportunity are not disabilities. Assessment must be nondiscriminatory in evaluating bilingualism. However, protecting students from over-identification cannot come at the cost of missing real disability.

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The Test Score Stayed the Same. The Child’s Skills Didn’t.

For parents, educators, and speech-language pathologists working with children with developmental language disorder One of the most frustrating conversations I have with parents and professionals happens after a reevaluation. Everyone has seen the child improve. The child explains ideas more clearly and asks better questions. They need less support, write more effectively, and repair misunderstandings.

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DLD Is a Language-Based Learning Disability

Developmental language disorder (DLD) is often misunderstood in educational settings because it is frequently conceptualized too narrowly as a “speech” or oral-language impairment. This framing is incomplete and clinically problematic. DLD affects the language systems students use to understand instruction, comprehend text, formulate ideas, organize written expression, participate in academic discourse, and access curriculum. In

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Beyond the Buzzwords: How SLPs Can Evaluate Clinical Trends, Pseudoscience, and Evidence-Based Claims

Abstract: In speech-language pathology, unsupported clinical claims often appear credible because they are attached to emotional testimonials, neuroscience language, parent urgency, professional trainings, or popular social media trends. This article provides a structured way to examine those claims without dismissing families, clinicians, or innovation. It reviews common red flags in pseudoscientific marketing, explains why “evidence-based”

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The ADHD Trap

When attention gets blamed, and language gets missed I need to state this as clearly as possible. We need to stop using ADHD as the explanation for students” school struggles. When a child cannot understand language, explain ideas, or navigate social expectations, that is not attention. That is language. And confusing the two costs kids

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Stop Calling It Articulation: When Speech Errors Are Really Language and Reading Problems

What looks like a simple sound error is often a deeper language weakness that quietly undermines reading and writing. I keep seeing the same referrals over and over. “The student doesn’t say his R.”“She drops sounds.”“His speech is sloppy.” On paper, this gets labeled as articulation. A simple speech issue. A few drills, practice the

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