title: The generativist-interactionist debate over specific language impairment: psycholinguistics at a crossroads.
abstract: Certain defining problems in psychology force us to clarify both the origins and the limits of a paradigm that has long governed our thinking in a particular area of research. The current debate over the nature and causes of specific language impairment is proving to be just such an issue. In particular, the existence of the KE family, 15 of whose 37 members suffer from specific language impairment, has raised far-reaching questions about the conceptual foundations of our current views about language deficits and, indeed, about language development in general.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychology and Philosophy, Atkinson College, York University, North York, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada. Shanker@yorku.ca
authors.forename: Stuart
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shanker
mesh_terms: D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000266:history; D011578:Psycholinguistics / Q000266:history*; D011582:Psychological Theory; D011584:Psychology / Q000266:history*