Background and Aim: Discourse-based interventions were studied less in speech therapy. This study aimed to investigate the effects of discourse-based intervention on language disabilities in school-aged children with borderline intelligence quotient (IQ).

Methods: In an experimental study, 33 students at the age of 6-13 years with borderline intelligence quotient (17 students for intervention and 16 students for control group) were selected with available sampling. The intervention lasted 14 sessions (every session: 45 minutes) that focused on the structure and content of discourse. Personal narrative was elicited with explanation of the same topic (go to a trip) for pre- and post-test.

Results: Mean scores of intelligence quotient, age and education had no difference between the two groups. The intervention caused the increase of compound sentences (p=0.038), types of cohesive conjunctions (p=0.003), and related information (p=0.008) and decrease of ungrammatical sentences (p=0.031).

Conclusion: Our findings indicate that participation in the intervention program has a clinically significant effect on the participants' abilities to produce personal narrative.

Background and Aim: Students with borderline intelligence quotient experience types of language disorders that are seen in their narratives, too. This research aimed to investigate the linguistic characteristics of picture-elicited narratives in school-aged children with borderline intelligence quotient.

Methods: In a cross-sectional study, 30 students with borderline intelligence quotient and 25 typically developing children at the age of 6-13 years were randomly selected from a population of four schools. Narrative discourse was elicited with description of pictures of one storybook.

Results: Students with borderline IQ were weaker than typically developing children in complex (p<0.001), compound sentences (p<0.001) and produced more ungrammatical sentences (p=0.007). Students with borderline intelligence quotient produced fewer related (p<0.001) but more unrelated information (p=0.033) and types of cohesive (p=0.010) and "HAM" conjunction (p=0.022) was fewer in them.

Conclusion: Students with borderline intelligence quotient showed more linguistic impairment in description of story.

Background and Aim: Specific language impairment (SLI), one variety of developmental language disorder, has attracted much interest in recent decades. Much research has been conducted to discover why some children have a specific language impairment. So far, research has failed to identify a reason for this linguistic deficiency. Some researchers believe language disorder causes defects in phonological working memory and affects auditory processing speed. Therefore, this study reviews the results of research investigating these two factors in children with specific language impairment.

Recent Findings: Studies have shown that children with specific language impairment face constraints in phonological working memory capacity. Memory deficit is one possible cause of linguistic disorder in children with specific language impairment. However, in these children, disorder in information processing speed is observed, especially regarding the auditory aspect.

Conclusion: Much more research is required to adequately explain the relationship between phonological working memory and auditory processing speed with language. However, given the role of phonological working memory and auditory processing speed in language acquisition, a focus should be placed on phonological working memory capacity and auditory processing speed in the assessment and treatment of children with a specific language impairment.