Children with both a language impairment and a learning disability
are at risk for poor social competence. Yet the processes that place
these children at risk remain unclear. A
developmental–organizational perspective was used to explore
processes underlying risk for poor social competence among language
learning disabled children. To this end, the relative influences of
language learning disability and social discourse skills on social
competence were examined in 50 language learning disabled (LLD) and 50
control (non-LLD) children aged 8–12 years. Findings indicated
that social discourse skills mediated the relation between LLD status
and children's social competence. Specifically, a domain of
social discourse, figurative language, was the strongest mediator of
the effect of LLD status on social competence. Additionally,
differences were confirmed between the LLD and non-LLD group in two
domains of social discourse, recreating sentences and figurative
language, as well as social competence. Two other domains of social
discourse, understanding ambiguous sentences and making inferences,
did not discriminate the groups. The findings emphasize the importance
of analyzing interrelations among domains to identify critical factors
related to developmental outcomes.