More encompassing than speech, language is the basis of communication. Disorders may involve areas such as problems in word retrieval and meaning, sentence syntax, concept formation, and language comprehension. Verbal receptive disabilities impair students' abilities to understand class lectures and discussions, as well as teacher directions. Expressive problems impact their recall and use of vocabulary and syntax in sentences. These students have difficulty explaining ideas, usually demonstrating a paucity of adjectives and adverbs, as well as a tendency to use short phrases instead of sentences.