Pragmatic language disorder

[sleepyhorse]

Hi there

Just wondered if someone could explain to me what this is. The speech therapist is saying that now that DS is 6 yrs old his symptoms are becoming clearer and has said she strongly suspects this is what he has. I have googled it and from what I can gather it's the social communication side of language and struggling to use language in an appropriate context. Is this correct? Is it a form of autism?

Hmm, people with autism nearly always if not always have difficulties with the pragmatic and semantic parts of language. But for a diagnosis of autism you have to have difficulties in all three areas of the "triad of impairments" which you could google.

I worked with a child quite a few years ago who had a diagnosis of semantic pragmatic disorder but I thought I read somewhere that they were not giving that as a stand alone diagnosis anymore! Am happy to be corrected though.

Hope that helps and good luck

Oh ok thank you. What does pragmatic mean in this context?

quite possible to have language disorders separate from ASD
I helped a kid with severe expressive language delay but no other symptoms.

Thanks zzzzz that's really helpful.
DS is now on an asd ARP in a mainstream school. He doesn't have a dx of autism but does have language disorder and socisl communication issues and a very complex profile I'm told. So feel very lucky that we got him into this school and a place on the ARP as the support he is getting is definately right for him