Pragmatic Impairment

This chapter sets out to characterize the attribution of communicative intentions to a speaker during communication as the culmination of an extended process of mental state attribution that draws on “evidence” from various sources, including gestures, facial expressions, and the prosodic features of utterances. The contribution of mentalizing skills to pragmatic aspects of language was demonstrated by examining the uptake of implicature, reference assignment, and information management in children and adults with a range of pragmatic impairments. The chapter illustrates the close association between pragmatics and mentalizing skills by utilizing the language samples from discourse production tasks. It examines pragmatic language assessments and interventions that emphasize the complex interplay between the mentalizing and pragmatic language skills. Pragmatic language skills are often assessed by means of checklists and profiles. Mentalizing skills are also targeted in other pragmatic and social communication interventions.