The Problem: Communication and language development difficulties in children is a complex and onerous phenomenon for study and for clinical practice. This is due to between and within group differences of impairment symptoms and profiles of children, and symptom co-morbidity with resulting fuzzy category boundaries. Researchers (Botting, et al 2016) noted that this reality poses serious obstacles when attempting to describe phenotypes, provide accurate diagnoses, and name impairment categories. They expound on the difficulties underlying the task of identifying and naming groups: 1. the heterogeneity of groups, 2. the problems sorting out the biological bases of the impairments, and 3. the complications in executing follow-up studies as children’s rapid developmental changes result in altered category membership. The ongoing debate over the term Specific Language Impairment (SLI) to describe language impairment in children exemplifies this dilemma. While SLI was excluded from the DSM-5, camps are drawn around ‘nay’ and ‘yea’ for the continued use of the term. A major obstacle to giving it up is the significant difficulties in finding an appropriate substitute label for the ‘SLI’ condition. The presentation goals: this presentation attempts to, 1. clarify the objections to the term, 2. identify the dilemma the SLI Debate poses for speech-language clinicians, and 3. suggest a viable solution while the ‘war of words’ is raging on and until an agreement on an alternate acceptable label is reached.
