The Handbook of Language and Speech Disorders

Jack S. Damico, Nicole Müller, Martin J. Ball, Jack S. Damico, Nicole Müller, Martin J. Ball

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781119607007, 9781119606963
• eBook ISBN: 9781119606994
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

An authoritative overview of language and speech disorders, featuring new and updated chapters written by leading specialists from across the field

The Handbook of Speech and Language Disorders, Second Edition, provides timely and authoritative coverage of current issues, foundational principles, and new research directions within the study of communication disorders. Building upon the reputation of the landmark first edition, this volume offers an exceptionally broad and in-depth survey of the field, presenting original chapters by internationally recognized specialists that examine an array of language, speech, and cognitive disorders and discuss the most crucial aspects of this evolving discipline while providing practical information on analytical methods and assessment.

Now in its second edition, the Handbook features extensively revised and refocused content throughout, reflecting the latest advances in the field. Original and updated chapters explore diverse topics including literacy and literacy impairments, patterns of normal and disordered language development, hearing impairment and cochlear implants, language acquisition and language delay, dementia, dysarthria, ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, and many others. This acclaimed single-volume reference resource:

• Provides 26 original chapters which describe the latest in new research and which indicate future research directions
• Covers new developments in research since the original publication of the first edition
• Features in-depth coverage of the major disorders of language and speech, including new insights on perception, hearing impairment, literacy, and genetic syndromes
• Includes a series of foundational chapters covering a variety of important general principles, including labelling, diversity, intelligibility, assessment, and intervention

The Handbook of Speech and Language Disorders, Second Edition, is essential reading for researchers, scholars, and students in speech and language pathology, speech, language and hearing sciences, and clinical llinguistics, as well as active practitioners and clinicians.

Part I
Foundations

1
Labeling as a Sociocultural Process in Communicative Disorders

JACK S. DAMICO¹, NICOLE MÜLLER^2,, AND MARTIN J. BALL³

¹ University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

² University College Cork, Ireland, and Linköping University, Sweden

³ Bangor University, Wales

1.1 Introduction

As a discipline oriented to communication, learning and social action, speech‐language pathologists are increasingly cognizant of the fact that our discipline stands with several other disciplines as firmly located within the social sciences. While we must acknowledge our debts to psychology, education, and medicine, our theoretical orientation over the past 30 years has been influenced by linguistics, sociology, and anthropology. In parallel with the other social sciences, our research methodologies and our clinical practices are progressively increasing our focus on naturalistic inquiry, authentic social contexts, interpretive and interactional perspectives, and the qualitative research paradigm (Duchan, 2010; Goodwin, 2014). This increased turn to the social sciences holds many advantages for our discipline. One of these advantages is how we can adopt aspects of social action theory to understand the complex process of labeling.

The term labeling within the human and social sciences refers to the tendency of providing an appraisal and/or a descriptor of others based upon any deviation from the perceived norm that is sufficient to garner attention (Matsueda, 2014); the typical outcome of labeling is some sort of categorization that creates differentiation. Social scientists have recognized that this process is ubiquitous in society. We are constantly observing and appraising others from our normative and interpretive perspectives. We note features of an individual’s appearance and behavior, and if even a subtle deviation from the perceived norm is identified, we have a propensity to create and use a label as mental shorthand. For example, if someone is observed as experiencing a brief unintelligibility while they are conversing, they may be labeled as exhibiting a communication deficit. Whether this label is accurate or appropriate is beside the point; it is sufficient to recognize that based upon some perceived deviation, there is a tendency to assign a label.

While this tendency toward labeling is common across all social actors, as professionals we formalize this tendency and treat it as a specialized circumstance referred to as “diagnosis” and, as sociologist Howard Becker (1963) has suggested, in such circumstances the label has power to create positive and negative consequences. As a result, care must be taken when assigning labels to others, whether we are in commonplace circumstances or within our professional venues (Conrad, 2007). To understand the impact of labeling and how it functions, this chapter will briefly discuss the social theory behind labeling; describe the role of labeling within the formalized diagnostic process, including some of the mechanisms employed to help establish the practice of assigning diagnostic labels for various perceived deviations; and detail some of the consequences of labeling via diagnostic categories in speech‐language pathology.

1.2 Labeling Theory

To understand the impact of labeling in specialized circumstances, it is helpful to review the theoretical foundation underlying labeling as a social process. Based upon the work of several early sociologists, but especially George Herbert Mead and Charles Horton Cooley, Herbert Blumer (1969) coined the term symbolic interactionism to describe how social interaction is used to create shared meanings within society using common language or symbols. He stated that individuals interpret significant symbols (language) reciprocally and then jointly construct a common interpretation within a context or situation which then calls for a specific meaningful social action. In effect, as Berger and Luckmann suggested in The Social Construction of Reality (1967), our systematic and comprehensible social world is constructed by our mutually agreed‐upon interpretations. An important consequence of this process is that the outcome of any social action is not only the objective behaviors exhibited, but also how the situation and behaviors are defined and interpreted by the interactants. This is a primary reason that society or social reality is an ever‐changing social process, rather than a static structure that consists of unchanging functional positions or stances. Each of us as social actors not only adapt to societal constraints but we also (and continually) contribute to the creation and re‐creation of these constraints (Matsueda, 2014; Shotter, 1993).

Blumer’s work had a significant impact on labeling theory. This idea of constructed societal reality via social interaction and meaning negotiation between individuals was applied to definitions of deviancy, and it was argued that regardless of whether a person is objectively deviant in their appearance or actions, if others defined that person or those actions as deviant, then consequences inherent in the concept of one being “set apart” accrued. Symbolic interactionism implied that the labeling/appraisal of individuals by social groups affects one’s self‐identity; the self is a construction based on appraisals made by significant others (Matsueda, 1992).

The next step for labeling theory was to employ Blumer’s ideas but also to make several facets of the interpretive process inherent in symbolic interactionism more salient. The first question concerning saliency was that if significant others appraise, judge, and create the concept of who or what is deviant, and if this has an impact on the various social actions, including one’s self‐identity, who are these significant others? Research and theory defined these significant others as members of primary groups, such as families and peers, and they were referred to as reference groups since it was understood that they provide an individual with a point of perspective and a comparison group (Matsueda, 1992). By extension, in specific situations or contexts, those individuals with various kinds of societal designations or roles (e.g., speech‐language pathologists in a diagnostic clinic, teachers in a classroom, police officers on a beat) became the reference groups who made decisions on the labeling of deviancies. The second question revolved around the idea of how deviancy was typically formulated. Erikson (1966) discovered that the labeling of deviancy entails a very explicit process of selection. He found that, although even the most deviant social actors engage frequently in conventional routine behaviors, they tend to exhibit moments of deviation as a measure of the kind of persons they really are. In his research, Erikson demonstrated via an examination of the Salem witchcraft trials that this very selective labeling serves a societal purpose of helping a community define its social and moral boundaries so that they could develop a sense of group identity. That is, labeling some individuals via interpretations of their behaviors or appearances as outliers served to define the rest of the group as a community.

The third question regarding the interpretation of deviancy through labeling involved the reasons or process of deciding whether a behavior or appearance was sufficiently different to warrant the label of deviant. Edwin Lemert (1967) established t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• List of Figures
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction
• Part I: Foundations
• Part II: Language Disorders
• Part III: Speech Disorders
• Part IV: Cognitive and Intellectual Disorders
• Author Index
• Index
• End User License Agreement