The topic that i have chosen to research is late-talkers vs. disorders.
Some foundation questions that would help me along the way include:

--What defines a late-talker?
--What defines a developmental language disorder?
--What are some characteristics of late-talkers?
--What are some characteristics of developmental language disorders?
--At what age is it apparent that a child is a late-talker or if he/she has a language disorder?
--At what age should a parent seek therapy?

Abbye

Like i said in my last discussion, I am interested in the developmental language milestones in children. After researching by browsing through the search utilities and listening to a lecture in Dr. Gardner's class, i think that i have narrowed my subject down to late-talkers vs. disorders. I think that this is very interesting, and i would love to learn more about it.
An essential quesion that would apply to this area would be, "How can I learn more about the characteristics of disordered behaviors to help me distinguish between late-talkers and disorders?"
I already know that many children are just simply "late-bloomers." They are not necessarily disordered. They eventually learn everything about language, but they learn it later than usual. They also learn it in the same manner as everyone else. Whereas disordered children do not learn everything about language. They do not use the language correctly. It takes different approaches to help these children.
There are many things that i do not know about this subject. I was basically just introduced to it last week. It captured my interest because my little cousin does not seem to be talking like he should. It makes me wonder whether he is a late-talker or if he has a language disorder. I am very anxious to learn more on it so that i can relate the material to him.

Being a student, I have learned much in my school years. I personally enjoy learning. There are some things that cause me to not want to learn. For example, if a teacher does not show enthusiasm, then I don't want to learn or do anything in that class. Fortunately, I have had few teachers like this. One teacher in particular was my 9th grade Geometry teacher, Coach Carroll. I hated him. He was not too fond of me either. He was the type of teacher who just like the macho boys in his class because he was a football coach. Math was always my favorite subject throughout school except for when I was in the 9th grade. All he would do was assign work and sit in the front of the room and sleep. He never taught. He could have cared less if we were there or not. He was awful. It would not have been so bad if he didn't care, and he did not make you actually work and know the material, but he did make you know the material. He would test you on it, and the tests would be hard. Naturally, he created a barrier in my mind that made me not want to learn in his class because he did not offer any help what-so-ever. As a result, my grade was not so good in that class, and I am awful at geometry.
On the other hand, there are those teachers who do care, and they care alot. They want you to learn from them as much as you can. My best example of a teacher like that would be my 11th grade English teacher, Ms. Baisden. I learned so much from her about writing papers. Although I think I have lost most of my skills that she taught me, I am a better writer because of her. She would go over and over on papers until you got it right. We would spend days revising papers. She would make us make sure that we had different sentence structures in our papers and do many other things so that our papers were not so repetitive. I really liked her class. Therefore, I enjoyed learning.
Having good teachers always enhances my learning experiences. I enjoy learning new things, especially things related to communication disorders. I think that the field is so interesting, and i look forward to learning new things each semester. My least favorite aspect of the department would be anatomy. I know that i have to know it, but i just think that it is boring. I enjoy the physiology part of it because that actually involves things that are relevant to the field (not saying that anatomy is not important). THat is probably the only part that i have not enjoyed so far. Everything else is very exciting, and i love finding out new things.