There is no such thing as communication without language.  We cannot speak without language; however, we can communicate without speech. 

Language can be written, spoken, gestured, computerized or done in sign language just to name a few.  Language can be viewed as having two components.  One aspect of language takes information in to understand others and then there is the other part of language that is the output or what is sent out to be interpreted by others.  Receptive language, or the input of language, is what we understand.  An example of receptive knowledge of vocabulary of language would be when asked to indicate which one is the dog the person points to the dog (or a picture).  Expressive language, or the output, is the expression of language.  One example would be when asked, what did you see and the person responds “a dog”.

Bloom, a noted professional in language research, divides language into three areas.  Each area has a receptive and expressive part.  The three areas are form, content, and use.

The form of language is the structure of language, often referred to as syntax or grammar.  This is the part of language dealing with possessives, plurals, comparatives, superlatives, noun-verb agreement and verb tensing just to name a few.  The structure of language helps the language flow in an organized manner so it makes sense.  Confusing plurals from singular forms are indicative of insufficient receptive knowledge of the form or syntax of language.  An illustration of an expressive difficulty with form of language could be; when asked to tell “Who’s scarf is red? “, and the response is; “The boy scarf is red” instead of the boy’s scarf is red.

The content of language is the semantic aspect of language; it is labeling, reasoning, and logic.    It is the cause and effect and vocabulary.  The meaning of language is reflected through the content of language.  Again this can be looked at receptively and expressively.  When asked to point to the picture of the way it looked after it rained we are looking at receptive semantic knowledge.  When asked to describe how you knew she came in from the rain and the child said, “she entered the house from outside all wet”, is evidence of expressive language knowledge of content.

The use of language is the pragmatic aspect of language.  Verbal and non-verbal areas could fall into this area easily.  Many people within the autistic spectrum have difficulty with this area.  An example of a receptive aspect of pragmatic or use of language weakness could simply be lack of eye contact or not taking turns in the listener-speaker dynamic.  An example of an expressive difficulty is this area is not telling you he’s cold when he’s cold (even though he knows and understands the meaning of the word cold).  People with pragmatic disorders of language do not communicate well with the knowledge they may have.  They often have difficulty with volume, rate, prosody and body positioning during communication.  Often times they have difficulty with abstract language involving feelings and more subtle areas of language dealing with social interaction and reading the “cues” of body language of others.  Often they have difficulty with humor, being too literal, and often being too honest.  They will say out loud what they think even if it could hurt someone’s feelings or the timing is not right.  They are missing that “filtering” system of what to say and when to say it.

Language is the most basic and fundamental system we have for communication.  If some or all the aspects of language described are deficient or delayed it will have an impact on the individual involved.  There are many reasons for disorders of language, some of which are caused by brain damage, stroke, hearing loss, environmental deprivation, genetic disorders, processing issues and many more.  Teachers, psychologists, and speech language pathologists would be helpful in identifying these problem areas.  A speech language pathologist is the professional who would be the one who can help treat the language deficiency.