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Short-Term and Long-Term Goals in Language Disorders

A person with a language disorder has difficulty conveying her thoughts and emotions or understanding others. One common language disorder, aphasia, is caused by brain damage and affects a person's ability to speak, write and understand others. Dementia disorders such as Alzheimer's disease also affect language and communication. Short-term goals for language disorders include speech therapy and practice. Long-term goals typically build on previous successes and involve participation in everyday activities and conversations.

  1. Examples

    • Short-term goals for aphasia are typically focused on simple linguistic tasks such as listening to and understanding short, simple sentences. A long-term goal would be to produce simple sentences. Short-term goals for dementia disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease, are usually focused on compensating for lack of memory or cognition. An example would be a journal where a person could jot down words he commonly forgets. Long-term goals, however, are difficult to set because most types of dementia are characterized by a gradual loss of memory and cognitive functions such as communication and following directions.

    Benefits

    • Short- and long-term goals in language disorder treatment give the patient and/or his caregiver an idea of what can be expected from the treatment. WebMD lists some goals of speech therapy: being able to communicate both verbally and nonverbally and comprehending verbal and nonverbal communication.

    Significance

    • Setting goals is a significant way to work toward improvement in language disorders. Generally, achieving even a short-term goal is significant, and long-term goals can be built on successful short-term goals. For example, a short-term goal might involve being able to name certain objects. The long-term goal would be to describe each object in detail.

    Function

    • Short-term and long-term goals in language disorders can function as markers of progress and improvement. Achieving short-term goals can give a person the confidence to persevere onward toward the long-term goal. If a person is able to hold a simple conversation with a trusted friend, he might feel a sense of victory that will help him with the long-term goal of holding a complex conversation.

    Types

    • The types of short-term and long-term goals depend greatly on the language disorder. For example, some language disorders make speaking in complete and grammatically correct sentences difficult. A short-term goal for this type of disorder might be to write out correct sentences. A long-term goal could be to use full sentences in a conversation.

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