Abstract not found

How do children around the world, no matter what their native language, begin speaking in sentences at the same age? The rapidity and uniformity of first language acquisition is possible because human infants are born with a biologically endowed innate language faculty that drives the course of language development. Although this premise was doubted fifty years ago, today biologists and linguists alike accept it. Our human language faculty orchestrates and shapes the acquisition of language. Typically developing children need only the surrounding language input to acquire language. In contrast, children with language disorders will need more than incidental exposure to language structure if they are to develop adult competence in their native language. We know that our main goal for children with language disorders is to help them achieve communication competence. Yet without language competence, i.e., knowledge of vocabulary and syntax, children will never be fully competent communicators.