More recently, the term "pragmatic language impairment" (PLI) has been proposed.

Pragmatic language impairment (PLI) is an impairment in understanding pragmatic areas of language.

There has been a great deal of controversy about this category, which is termed pragmatic language impairment (PLI) in the UK.

A small 2008 study found that a significant number (40%) of people diagnosed with pragmatic language impairment as children in previous decades would now be given a diagnosis as autism.

The fee-paying school specialises in educating pupils with dyslexia and its related learning disabilities such as dyscalculia, dyspraxia, pragmatic language impairment, and specific language impairment.

Pragmatic language impairments are related to autism and Asperger syndrome, but also could be related to other non autistic disabilities such as ADHD and mental retardation.

While autistic children exhibit pragmatic language impairment, this type of communication disorder can also be found in individuals with other types of disorders including auditory processing disorders, neuropathies, encephalopathies and certain genetic disorders.

This type of impairment was previously called semantic-pragmatic disorder (SPD).

According to Bishop & Norbury (2002), children with semantic-pragmatic disorder have fluent, complex and clearly articulated expressive language but exhibit problems with the way their language is used.

There is debate over the relationship between semantic-pragmatic disorder and autistic disorder as the clinical profile of semantic-pragmatic disorder is often seen in children with high-functioning autism.