Lauretta Bender - Work in Language Disability

Work in Language Disability

Although Bender focused mainly on reading disability, she also spent a great deal of time working in the broad field of language disability. She viewed developmental language disabilities as occurring along a spectrum from least to most severe, with reading disability occupying the least severe end of the spectrum and the language problems of autism and schizophrenia occupying the other. Although her views in this matter have been criticized, they essentially posit that autism and schizophrenia are biologically determined lags in maturity, just as reading disability is a biologically developed deviation. Bender does not imply that the causes of the afflictions are the same, but instead that their connection lies in the common symptoms of specific language dysfunctions.

Bender attempted to understand the vulnerability of the language function to all the developmental disorders. She recognized the biological nature of a group of learning disorders for which there was no clinical evidence of structural damage to the central nervous system. She also understood that the learning problem was only one symptom of the biological defect which affects other areas of behavior, such as impulse control, motor coordination, perception and integration, and that underlying the spectrum of deficits is basic dysfunction in special orientation and temporal organization. Bender also incorporated social factors contributing to language delay.

Bender's research has been used to devise programs to prevent learning disorders. Her efforts contributed a wealth of knowledge in the field of learning disorders that is still called upon and serves as a foundation for many different pedagogies.