Expository Discourse in Children, Adolescents, and Adults

Abstract

School success in the 21st century requires proficiency with expository discourse -- the use and understanding of informative language in spoken and written modalities. This occurs, for example, when high school students read their textbooks and listen to their teachers' lectures, and later are asked to demonstrate their knowledge of this complex topic through oral reports and essay examinations. Although many students are proficient with the expository genre, others struggle to meet these expectations. This book is designed to provide information on the use and understanding of expository discourse in school-age children, adolescents, and young adults. Recently, researchers from around the world have been investigating the development of this genre in typical students and in those with language disorders. Although many books have addressed the development of conversational and narrative discourse, by comparison, books devoted to the topic of expository discourse are sparse. This crossdisciplinary volume fills that gap in the literature and makes a unique contribution to the study of language development and disorders. It will be of interest to a range of professionals, including speech-language pathologists, teachers, linguists, and psychologists who are concerned with language development and disorders.