Acquired Language Disorders as Barriers to Effective Communication

Abstract

Communication is a complex process that involves various fundamentals. It not only involves different elements but also entails speaking, listening, writing and reading. Effective communication can be curtailed by a number of factors stemming from either the elements of the communication process, the participants, the communication environment or all of these. Language is a vital element in effective communication because communication is predominantly facilitated through language. Communication breakdown is witnessed in communication events involving people with fully developed proper language functions. Therefore, it is logical to argue that effective communication would be severely impaired in communication events involving people with language disorders. However, as the literature reveals, little has been done to find out how acquired language disorders affect effective communication. Adopting a descriptive design, this paper determines whether acquired language disorders pose any barriers to effective communication, what type of barriers they are and how the barriers affect communication effectiveness. It shows that acquired language disorders create process, semantic and psychological barriers that hinder effective communication at crucial stages in the communication process. The barriers generated prevent proper encoding, transmission and decoding of the message. The paper then provides some suggestions on how to improve effectiveness.