Children with specific language impairment exhibit significant limitations in language functioning that cannot be attributed to deficits in hearing, oral structure and function, or general intelligence. Papers concerned with these children often set forth two important qualifications. First, specifically language impaired (SLI) children constitute a heterogeneous group, differing markedly from one another in their language characteristics and other areas of weakness. Second, such children are identified by exclusion criteria. That is, although SLI children differ from one another, none exhibits the hallmark characteristics of other identifiable handicapped groups. As a consequence, they represent a type of miscellaneous “other” category. In the present contribution, I shall use these same points to argue that the notion of specific language impairment is of questionable value as a guiding principle for research aimed at uncovering a cause of SLI children's problems and that, furthermore, provision of the necessary educational and clinical services for these children is not dependent on this construct.

The chapter is divided into two major sections. In the first section I review the evidence pertaining to the three most prominent accounts of specific language impairment. I attempt to show that none of these divergent accounts offers a reasonable explanation for language impairment, although at least one of them provides compelling evidence that often these children's problems are not restricted to language. In the second section I argue that the limitations of current research are due not so much to our selection of the wrong causal factors to study as to our assumption that there are tangible causes in the first place.