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Discourse intervention across the life span-it's simply difficult but worth it

In this issue of Topics in Language Disorders, issue editor, Sandra Gillam, and her authors take readers on a circle tour of discourse across the life span. In these articles, they capture the essence of all that makes communication both simple and difficult. Discourse seems simple when it serves natural communicative purposes and all goes well. At such moments, it is essentially transparent. The complexities of discourse become more visible, however, when people with language disorders struggle to pull together all the complex pieces that are needed to cohere language into a connected integrated discourse unit. The authors in this issue show how to parse discourse types into component skills. They also describe current evidence for therapeutic approaches appropriate for different age clients. By doing so, they offer insights for language interventionists whose goals are to help make what seems particularly difficult for individuals with language disorders become simpler. Practitioners will find reviews of current scientific evidence that can make their jobs easier. Researchers will find themselves stimulated to ask new questions. In fact, one of the special features shared by articles in this issue is their combination of cogent reviews of the evidence for a particular age of client and form of discourse, accompanied by original work on an innovative approach for