Special Series Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 21(1), 1–7 C 2006, The Division for Learning Disabilities of the Council for Exceptional Children Language Impairment and Reading Disability: Connections and Comp Introduction to the Special Issue Elaine R. Silliman University of South Florida Cheryl M. Scott Rush University Medical Center Researchers and practitioners in the fields of reading and language are well informed about the importance of phonological awareness in beginning reading. The purpose of this special issue of Learning Disabilities Research & Practice is to present recent research that extends the search for language and reading connections beyond the realm of phonological awareness. Many children with language impairment (LI) identified before formal schooling experience persistent difficulty in learning to read. Two interrelated issues are prerequisite for understand- ing the developmental course of events that might link language and reading (dis)ability in these children. One is an appreciation of exactly what is meant by LI, while the second con- cerns how LI should be explained. In this introductory article, we explore the complexities of these two issues, in particular the controversy between the domain-specific perspective and the domain-general perspective on the nature of specific LI (SLI). Consistent with these per- spectives, future studies on possible language-reading links will need to measure language and related processes in greater breadth and depth, over time, and within a variety of experiential contexts. The five articles in this issue represent a critical first step in this direction. The primary purpose of thisspecialissue isto present contemporary research in child language development and impairment thatis seeking to clarify connections between spoken language processes and reading beyond the phono- logical awareness domain. As Kamhi and Catts (2005) point out, a stumbling block for moving beyond the phonological coding view of reading and reading disability has been the very complexity of those processes that interact with the so- ciocognitive and linguistic/discourse domains to support the development of higher-level skills in spoken language and lit- eracy learning. If higher-level semantic and syntactic factors contribute in a causal model to reading achievement, some researchers argue that the contribution is restricted to reading comprehension. For example, Vellutino, Fletcher, Snowling, and Scanlon (2004) conclude from a review of causal fac- tors in reading disability over the past four decades that the level of evidence at best is fragile for the causal contributions of semantic and syntactic knowledge to the “weak phono- logical coding” (p. 12) that leads to poor word-level identi- fication, although both the semantic and syntactic domains Requests for reprints should be sent to Elaine R. Silliman, Communication Sciences & Disorders, University of South Florida, PCD1017. Electronic inquiries may be sent to silliman@cas.usf.edu. may contribute to text comprehension problems when wor levelrecognition is adequate (Muter, Hulme,Snowling, & Stevenson, 2004). However, when the focus is shifted to ch dren with language impairment (LI), a strong association appears to hold between syntactic knowledge and reading comprehension. Catts,Fey,Tomblin, and Zhang (2002), in their longitudinal studies, found that a grade 2 composite measure of syntax was a unique predictor of a compos- ite reading comprehension score in grade 4 for children with LI. In light of a potentially important connection between sp ken language ability, in the broader sense, and reading dis ability, it becomes particularly important to define exactly whatis meant by LI. In the absence of a clear consensus about the LI construct, or at least agreement on what the m jor candidates might be, the viability of research designs th could illuminate the nature of the complex connections wit reading disabilities is compromised, as are the measures th practitioners administer for assessing LI. The authors of the five articles in this special issue, while traversing different pathways, all reach toward enhancing connectivity among aspects of language learning, languag impairment, and reading (dis)ability. Each setof authors asks a different research question, but at the same time ea