Deficient acquisition strategies: a proposed conceptual framework for analyzing severe language deficiency.

A conceptual framework was proposed for analyzing aberrant or retarded language development. Recent developments in psycholinguistics have led to a view of language acquisition as an interactive process involving external interactions between child and environment and internal interactions between cognitive holdings and processes. The child's active participation in these interactions is conceptualized as a system of language-acquisition strategies. These consist of both information-gathering strategies and information-processing strategies and are distinguished from the adult speaker's facilitation strategies. We suggest that aberrant or retarded language development may be viewed in terms of specific process deficits in one or more of these strategy systems. In the present article three preverbal information-gathering strategies identified as selective listening, establishment of joint reference, and feedback mechanisms were described. Suggestions for future research and implications for intervention were discussed.