A growing body of literature is suggesting that many children with language disorders and delays--even those with so-called specific language impairment--have difficulties in other domains as well. In this pathbreaking book, the authors draw on more than 40 years of research and clinical observations of populations ranging from various groups of children to adults with brain damage to construct a comprehensive model for the development of the interrelated skills involved in language performance, and trace the crucial implications of this model for intervention. Early tactual feedback, they argue, is more critical for the perceptual/cognitive organization of experiences that constitutes a foundation for language development than either visual or auditory input, and the importance of tactually-anchored nonverbal interaction cannot be ignored if efforts at treatment are to be successful.
All those professionally involved in work with children and adults with language problems will find the authors' model provocative and useful.

A growing body of literature is suggesting that many children with language disorders and delays--even those with so-called specific language impairment--have difficulties in other domains as well. In this pathbreaking book, the authors draw on more than 40 years of research and clinical observations of populations ranging from various groups of children to adults with brain damage to construct a comprehensive model for the development of the interrelated skills involved in language performance, and trace the crucial implications of this model for intervention. Early tactual feedback, they argue, is more critical for the perceptual/cognitive organization of experiences that constitutes a foundation for language development than either visual or auditory input, and the importance of tactually-anchored nonverbal interaction cannot be ignored if efforts at treatment are to be successful.
All those professionally involved in work with children and adults with language problems will find the authors' model provocative and useful.

This book focuses on behaviorally disabled children and adults. Part I describes the development of normal children, Part II the deviances of behaviorally impaired children and adults, and Part III discusses learning processes characteristic of both normal and perceptually disordered people. The references to research include both cross-sectional studies and longitudinal studies. Numerous photographs and examples illustrate several steps of normal and abnormal perceptual development and stimulate readers to add their own observations. Research findings support a model of development where developmental levels are related to a general source, a root. This model gives hope for therapy, for if the therapy can provide better tactile- kinesthetic information to children and adults when solving problems of daily living, we can expect that the root is strengthened and, consequently, the child will progress in development and the adult will become able to perform on higher levels of organisation. The "work at the root" is described in detail in Part III. The book addresses those concerned about the education of normal and behaviorally disordered children, those responsible for detecting and evaluating disordered children and brain injured adults, and those working with behaviorally abnormal children or brain injured adults.