"What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet."

Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

In this famous quotation, Shakespeare's Juliet expressed her feelings for Romeo, implying that it was not the name "Montague" that defined the man she loved, but the man himself, and that he would mean the same to her no matter what his name. In spite of Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers' wishes to shed the constraints imposed by their family names, it turned out that those labels, and what they stood for, did matter-and quite a lot. It can be said that, "This one short line encapsulates the central struggle and tragedy of the play" (Moore, 2006).

In the current issue of Topics in Language Disorders, Issue Editors, Drs. Elaine Silliman and Virginia Berninger take up the theme of how members of different "families," in the form of disciplines and professions, can miscommunicate by failing to adopt a common set of names for similar constructs. The lack of a common terminology and measurement tools, thus, becomes a cause and a consequence of "insufficient dialogue" about the nature of language impairment and learning disabilities contributing to decisions about "appropriate intervention/treatment, therapy, or instruction" (Silliman & Berninger, 2011, p. 6-23).

Although concepts of what a thing is called, and how to measure it, rarely are life threatening in the fields of psychology, speech-language pathology, and general and special education, they can be life altering, as illustrated by case examples presented by the authors of this issue. All students, including those with special needs, deserve to have coherent and comprehensible assessment and intervention services. Going through the process of worry and concern associated with having a child "tested" for language and/or learning difficulties can be confusing enough for families, without different professionals calling the same thing by different names, calling different things by the same name, or overlooking a particular feature that could provide a key to the nature of the child's difficulties and intervention needs because of limited models or clinical processes. It was an ambitious undertaking, but the issue editors conceptualized an issue that would clarify constructs underlying spoken and written language development and disorders, illuminate and explicate areas of potential confusion or fuzziness, and offer procedures on the basis of models that make sense across disciplines.

Silliman and Berninger contributed the opening article on the basis of their own extensive research and review of other relevant research supporting evidence-based practice from their two professional fields (speech-language pathology for Silliman and psychology for Berninger) and many related disciplines. They set the collaborative tone for the invited articles that make up the remainder of the issue and introduce case examples to illustrate the problems that can arise when a child's developmental history is overlooked, or when no coherent model is available for assessing a child's strengths and needs. This article includes a table summarizing defining features and learning and phenotype profiles for two specific learning disabilities- dysgraphia and dyslexia-and suggests the term oral and written language learning disability to refer to a third specific disability (often called by other names) in which spoken and written language is affected on multiple levels and from early developmental stages. This article also includes an outline of procedures for differential diagnosis, which should provide helpful guidance to researchers, clinicians, and educators, all of whom are target audiences for this journal.

The remaining four articles in the issue offer further insights into aspects of clinical problem solving and description that round out the issue's theme of communication across disciplines. Cheryl Scott describes how hypothesis testing can be used to illuminate individual differences that must be considered to fully understand a particular student's strengths and needs. Gary Troia highlights how pragmatics relates to written language composition, an area of potential difficulty that is at high risk of being overlooked. Kenn Apel and Lynda Apel share interprofessional perspectives on using a framework of six linguistic knowledge components-phonology, orthography, morphology, semantics, syntax, and pragmatics-to outline profiles of abilities related to difficulties in written language acquisition, both reading and writing. Barbara Foorman, Elissa Arndt, and Elizabeth Crawford use two models of reading and writing to provide a rationale for a framework of constructs to be considered across disciplines when conducting research, assessment, and intervention-phonological structures, the alphabetic principle, fluency in decoding and encoding, comprehension of oral and written language, and extensive reading and writing. When read as a collection, the articles in this issue complement each other and round out a coherent and comprehensible framework for guiding interdisciplinary assessment and intervention services, consistent with the issue editors' goals.

Although achieving complete consistency in how constructs are named and defined is probably an unreachable goal, the issue editors' call for more discussion of concepts and terminology across discipline boundaries is laudable and has practical implications. Concepts evolve as scientific evidence accumulates and theories are expanded, but if constructs are presented with adequate definition and placed under interdisciplinary scrutiny, they can evolve in a systematic way and be applied consistently in professional practice. This issue opens that conversation while being full of practical information that can be immediately useful. It contributes perfectly to the mission of Topics in Language Disorders, and I am delighted to recommend it to readers.

Nickola Wolf Nelson, PhD

Editor

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