appropriate message, or interpret what others say, in relation to context. Pragmatic difficulties can give an impression of oddity, with the content of language not fitting the environmental or social context; comprehension may be over-literal; the child may chatter incessantly, be poor at turn-taking in conversation and maintaining a topic Discourse – Discourse refers to a level of organization of language beyond the sentence. Child with limitations in this domain may have limited ability to tell a story or describe a set of events in a logical sequence Verbal memory and learning – Problems with remembering words or sentences can affect both the learning of new vocabulary, and the understanding of long or complex sentences. Young children with DLD may say their first words later than other children. It may also take children with DLD longer to learn and remember novel words. Phonology – Phonology is the branch of linguistics concerned with the way sounds are combined in words. Children with difficulties with phonology may fail to distinguish between certain speech sounds, such as 't' and 'k', so that 'cake' is produced as 'tate'. Such difficulties are not unusual as part of typical development in toddlers, but they would usually resolve by the time children are 4–5 years old. Difficulties with producing some speech sounds accurately may reduce intelligibility of speech. In addition, more subtle difficulties in recognising specific sounds in words (phonological awareness) can lead to literacy difficulties. Relationship with speech disorders Speech is the act of articulating sounds, and this can be impaired for all kinds of reasons – a structural problem such as cleft lip and cleft palate, a neurological problem affecting motor control of the speech apparatus dysarthria, or inability to perceive distinctions between sounds because of hearing loss. Some distortions of speech sounds, such as a lisp, are commonly seen in young children. These misarticulations should not be confused with language problems, which involve the ability to select and combine linguistic elements to express meanings, and the ability to comprehend meanings. Although speech disorders can be distinguished from language disorders, they can also co-occur. When a child fails to produce distinctions between speech sounds for no obvious reason, this is typically regarded as a language problem affecting the learning of phonological contrasts. The classification of and terminology for disorders of speech sound production is a subject of considerable debate. In practice, even for those with