Recent theory and clinical insight have emphasized the linguistic aspects of reading and reading disorders. As a result, some speech-language pathologists are playing a more integral role in the identification, assessment, and remediation of reading disorders. This paper discusses the linguistic basis of reading and reading problems, and provides some guidance to speech-language pathologists on how they can use their knowledge of language to deal more effectively with developmental reading

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... ders. Clinical insights and recent developments in psycholinguistics have emphasized the linguistic rather than the visual processing aspects of reading. This change in emphasis has led some speech-language pathologists to play a more integral role in the identification, assessment, and remediation of children with reading disorders. However, not all speech-language pathologists are comfortable with this new role: The purpose of this paper is to describe the linguistic basis of reading and reading disorders and to provide some guidance to speech-language pathologists on how they may use their language expertise in dealing with developmental reading disorders. The paper begins with a discussion of the forces that, for many years, made oral language and reading disorders appear to be two unrelated problems. A model is then presented to illustrate the similarities between reading and oral language processing. In the next section, the linguistic basis of reading disorders is discussed. Finally, some suggestions are presented concerning the role the speechlanguage pathologist can play in the identification, assessment, and remediation of reading disorders.