Communication disorders

Book Title: Clinical Linguistics (2008)

Author/Publisher: Louise Cummings, Edinburgh University Press.

Description: The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists estimates that 2.5 million people in the UK have a communication disorder. Of this number, some 800,000 people have a disorder that is so severe that it is hard for anyone outside their immediate families to understand them.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to speech and language therapy which will give SLT students a starting point for a wide range of communication impairments. Communication disorders are addressed within dedicated chapters along with the prevalence and causes of these disorders. The assessment and treatment of communication disorders by speech and language therapists are discussed at length.

Book Title: Clinical Pragmatics (2009)

Author/Publisher: Louise Cummings, Cambridge University Press.

Description: Many children and adults experience significant breakdown in the use of language. The resulting pragmatic disorders present a considerable barrier to effective communication.

This book provides a critical examination of the current state of our knowledge of pragmatic disorders and a comprehensive overview of the main concepts and theories in pragmatics. It examines the full range of pragmatic disorders that occur in children and adults and discusses how they are assessed and treated by clinicians.

It attempt to integrate the fields of pragmatics, language pathology and cognitive science by examining the ways in which pragmatics can make a useful contribution to debates about cognitive theories of autism. Clinicians, experimentalists and theorists are encouraged to think in a critical fashion about how they deal with pragmatic issues.