How can a language disorder impact academic achievement?
(1) Early/Elementary Years In the early grades, children are learning to read and depend on picture clues to decode words. When a seemingly common word (i.e. fence) is hard for a child to identify or name, picture clues are not an effective means for decoding. As a result, identifying the unknown word becomes a series of guesses. By the time the child is able to pronounce and read the word, he/she no longer recalls the other details in a sentence. Ultimately, these deficits can lead to poor reading comprehension. (2) Middle School/High School Years In the older years, when children are no longer learning to read but reading to learn, social studies and science are even further affected. Children are often tested on their ability to understand terms by a true/false, fill-in-the-blank or matching format. As they become overwhelmed, test performance is generally poor. Language Arts may also be an area of concern, as children with language disorders do not understand more abstract concepts
