Language Competence and Social Behavior of Students with Emotional or Behavioral Disorders

Abstract

This study was designed to explore a model of communicative competence (Abbeduto & Nuccio, 1989) and identify whether its components could (a) predict pragmatic language difficulties for children with emotional or behavioral disorders (E/BD) and (b) describe the semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic language ability as well as the social skills of these children. The Test of Language Development (Newcomer & Hammill, 1997), the Social Skills Rating System (Gresham & Elliot, 1990), and the Test of Pragmatic Language (Phelps-Terasaki & Phelps-Gunn, 1992) were used to assess 61 students. Results indicated that 93.5% of the students scored between one and two standard deviations below the mean in at least one area. Statistical analysis revealed that semantic language, syntactic language, IQ, and social skills—components of the model of communicative competence—predicted pragmatic language competence.