Contemporary accounts of the cognition/language relationship: implications for speech-language clinicians.

The role of cognition in children's language acquisition is a topic of current debate. This article provides a review of the normative literature and a discussion of questions regarding children who have difficulty acquiring language. Key terminology is described, along with basic issues. Major research questions are identified, along with the competing hypotheses that have been proposed and the evidence associated with each hypothesis. Implications for models of language disorders and remediation activities are discussed.