[Clinical usefulness of the classifications of developmental language disorders]

Abstract

There have been several proposals for the classification of language disorders in children; some of them are based on the desire to differentiate in terms of its possible cause, while others are based on the criteria for symptoms grouping ('syndromes'), in order to facilitate the diagnostic process and orientate some intervention programs. In the first part, there is an analysis of the advantages and limitations of the most popular classifications, pointing to the inaccuracy on description basis and to the inability to distinguish between several subgroups. In the second part, it is analysed the clinical purpose of using these nomenclatures. Finally, the idea of using a clinical tool is proposed, in order to include the severity criteria of symptoms in the differential diagnosis.